Review (Guest): Government of the Shadows–Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty (Paperback)

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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Review by Guido G. Preparata (Rome, Italy)

5.0 out of 5 stars Innovative and courageous social science

June 8, 2009

Eric Wilson and Tim Lindsey (eds)

In this recent volume by Pluto Press, Eric Wilson (Monash University) has assembled an all-stars team of politologists with the objective of changing the face of social analysis. This effort stems from the urgency to redefine the conceptual spaces within which we perforce corral our daily experience as citizens of what has become, in fact, an international polity of overwhelming, as well as highly disquieting, complexity. This is not at all to say, however, that the project limits itself to adding “epicycles,” as it were, to the Ptolemaic vulgate of British constitutionalism–i.e., the standard model of the “Liberal State”–which has imposed itself as the sole lens through which one is to contemplate the social dynamics for every single political reality of this world.

Government of the Shadows (GOS) represents in this regard an honest and brave swerve away from the mainstream in two fundamental respects.

First, it wishes to rethink political science entirely, by rejecting definitively the puritanical dichotomization of society into its predominant and “clean” edifice versus the latter's more or less corrupt “covert netherworld” (p. 228)–the prescriptive implication of conventional analysis being that delinquents need only be jailed, and their activities repressed, as the given regime is in the meantime steered (hopefully) toward the eventual and complete assimilation of Liberal institutions, which will naturally cure it of the criminal deviancy.

Second, and no less important, this project seeks to re-endow the movement for social justice of a unity of intent and of thought, which has lately been shattered by an excessive methodological preoccupation with multiplicity and diversity. By denouncing with reason and cogency the inequities suffered by a majority of innocents–throughout our recent history and all over the world–at the hands of identifiable, responsible parties within the power apparatuses in connivance with the world's mafias, and by ordering all such phenomenological mass into theory, this book, as a collective endeavor, acts as a vigorous reminder that realistic sociological analysis is also very much an instrument of pacific dissent. In this sense, GOS stands as a first and decisive installment of a modern anti-oligarchic theory.

To compass the reality of modern power games in its full spectrum, GOS innovates by proposing the new discipline of “parapolitics,” defined in Robert Cribb's introductory as “the study of criminal sovereignty, of criminals and sovereigns behaving as criminals in a systematic way” (p. 8).

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Review: Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Read Fire Side Chat Review–This is Supplemental

February 20, 2010

William Greider

Very rarely do I find reviews as lengthy as my own. Please read and appreciate the Fireside Chat review that is deservedly popular with readers. I first encountered William Greider while managing the international conference on “National Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” and I realized that the way the US Government was mis-managing our democracy and our public commons was central to the demise of America. The two books I have most appreciated by him are Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy and The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy but I have to remind myself that before I knew him personally I had also read and appreciated Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country as well as One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (Hardcover).

I like the “fireside chat” description of this book and am providing my own summary primarily for my own benefit and the benefit of those that follow all of my non-fiction reviews at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog where all of my reviews, in 98 non-fiction categories, are more easily exploited than here at Amazon (but they all lead back to Amazon.

QUOTE (1): We live in a country where telling the hard truth with clarity has become taboo.

QUOTE (7): From the birth of our nation, it was always ordinary people, pushing from the bottom against an entrenched status quo, that led to the most momentous changes in American life.
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Review: Comeback America–Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (Hardcover)

3 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

3.0 out of 5 stars Ten Years Late, More Whimper than Roar

February 7, 2010

David Walker

I was watching David Walker as he served nine of his fifteen years at Comptroller General, with light-weight whimpers to Congress until he finally got Peter Peterson to bail him out of government and give him a chunk of cash for making movies and writing a book and creating a web site that very few serious under 40 pioneers pay attention to.

I was thrilled to see him tell Congress in 2007 that the US was bankrupt–both Senator McCain and Senator Obama could have cared less–and so he walked quietly back to his holding cell at the General Accountability Office (GAO).  His “loyalty” to impeachable masters is just as troubling to me as the loyalty of our military leaders during the neo-con rampage.

This book loses one star for the publishers arrogance and ineptitude in failing to use all of the tools Amazon provides, so that readers like myself who read a great deal and do not buy books on whim, can actually look at the table of contents. If you want a sense what the author has to say, see the Wikipedia page on the US Federal Budget where the author's fingerprints are elegantly visible.

If and when the publisher acts more responsibly and provides Look Inside the Book information as well standard entries via Amazon Advantage (about the book, about the author, editorial reviews), I will buy the book, read it, and review it.

The book loses a second star for being wildly praised by all the unethical losers that got us into this mess in the first place by sacrificing their ethics and selling the two party system out to Wall Street. Bill Bradley in particular is a major disappointment, he slunk off to Allen and Company where George “Slam Dunk” Tenet is also in hiding, and they have profited handsomely for betraying the public trust for over a decade. Edumund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Even better is the following from Chief Justice Louis Brandeis:

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Review: Measuring Globalisation–Gauging its Cosequences (Paperback)

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Economics
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5.0 out of 5 stars Core Reference Note Social versus Economic Gap
January 26, 2010
Axel Dreher

The paperback is cheaper and recommended over the hardcover, but for decidiing to buy purposes, visit the hardcover to use Inside the Book to examine the Table of Contents and other sample views. For some reason Amazon does not transfer Inside the Book the way they do reviews between hard and soft cover issues of the same content.Measuring Globalisation: Gauging Its Consequences

The web site is really rich in resources and free, recommend a look there as well.

Good news: over time, social globalization (e.g. the spread of the Interent and information access) has increased.

Bad news: it is no longer keeping pace with financial globalization (probably because finance is phantom wealth, as in derivatives) and it is leveling off. What most do not realize is that Human Capital is the only inexhausitble resource we have, and scoial globalization is how we leverage all human minds all the time.

Capitalism today, completely apart from the predatory immoral aspects and the outright fraud of Wall Street and especially Goldman Sachs, Citi-Bank, and Morgan, is focused on the one billion rich whose total economy is one trillion a year. As C. K. Prahalad has so brilliantly pointed out in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the five billion poor have an annual gross income of four trillion dollars a year, and capitalism is ignoring them.

When combined with the infinite wealth creating potential attendant to empowering the poor, see such books as The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom and Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail (BK Currents (Paperback)), the future of humanity would appear to demand a redirection of capitalism and an inversion of our focus on the poor as assets rather than liabilities.

For 1500 other reviews sorted into 98 non-fiction categories, visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. All book reviews lead back to their respective Amazon page, they are simply easier to browse in a coherent fashion there (Amazon has refused for years to implement this and many other suggestions).

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Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Five for the Voice, Four for the Substance

December 12, 2009
Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is one of a handful of individuals that I consider to be true guides for the rest of us, and I consider two of his earlier books, Cracking the Code and SCREWED, to have been instrumental in my own transformation from recovering spy to intelligence officer to the public.

The book does cover a lot of ground lightly, but it is coherent, and because it is Thom Hartmann, whose voice is hugely important to all of us, I settle on a five instead of a four. Other books that complement this one 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, and The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy.

Here are my notes:

+ Book may be missing pages, mine starts at page xi (Preface) so I am left wondering, what happened to i through x?

+ Book opens with quotes from Einstein and Schweitzer with respect to the urgency of widening our circle of compassion to include ALL living things, and explicitly ALL humanity.

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Review DVD: The AMERICAN Ruling Class

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Reviews (DVD Only), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Remarkable–Provokes & Entertains

December 10, 2009
Robert Altman, James Baker, Bill Bradley, Harold Brown, Hodding Carter, William Coleman, Walter Cronkite, Barabara Ehrenreich, Vartan Gregorian, Robert Hackney, Doug Henwood, Mike Dedavoy, Joseph Nye, Samuel Peabody, John Perkins, Pete Seeger, Lawrence Summers, Arthur Sulzberger, William Taft,  Kurt Vonnegut, Howard Zinn

This DVD is superb and also subversive. I doubt that the “stars” in this movie, particularly James Baker, Bill Bradley, Howard Brown, and Larry Summers, really knew what they were getting into, since their words–and their bland denials–ring so false in this context.

I put the film in while trying to deal with Microsoft's latest “update” that cost me half the morning, and I recommend it very strongly as a Christmas present or for classrooms and book clubs.

My notes:

+ A Peabody, whose ancestors came on “the boat” and also founded Groton, laments that whereas all the leaders used to pass through Groton, now there is no real “source.” I am reminded of Lee Iacocca's Where Have All the Leaders Gone?.

+ Hedge fund visits basically boils all ownership in America down to four banks, and later in the film we learn that six multinational control almost all “content.”

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Review (Guest) DVD: I.O.U.S.A. DVD on US Bankruptcy

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Reviews (DVD Only)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

David Walker (Peter G. Peterson Foundation), Bob Bixby (Concord Coalition) Director: Patrick Creadon

Product Description: America is on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.   Over 125 minutes of bonus materials, including exclusive interviews with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan and others.

Phi Beta Iota:  Walker was Comptroller General and briefed Senate in 2007 on bankruptcy.  He resigned in the 9th year of a 15 year term.  Peterson, his sponsor, is the author of Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About I.

5 stars an outstanding and informative film, April 22, 2009

By Matthew G. Sherwin

I.O.U.S.A. educates people about the very real and very dangerous financial problems our government is facing. The producers of the film pull no punches here and they don't sugar-coat it; and that was the right thing to do. The way Americans live today is essentially “living for the moment” without thinking of the importance of saving money for a rainy day; and the film goes into great, great detail highlighting that the American government does the same. I will tell you just some of the points made by this movie; although it will seem as if I've given it all away I assure you that I haven't.
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