Peter Dale Scott has written many books about the Deep State at work in the U.S. government. Scott depicts American society as structurally and inherently schizophrenic. Just as there is the public government and the deep government, and ordinary events and deep events, there are two dominant forces permeating United States history: One egalitarian, believing in fairness, inclusion, and free expression, and the other militaristic and exclusionary, which is only interested in social control.
4.0 out of 5 starsBuy the Kindle not the Print — Thoughts Worth Considering, December 23, 2014
Enough substance to warrant my finishing the book and writing a summary review.
I accepted this book from a publicist because of my strong interest in “third way” economics. I like the concept of Collaborative Commonwealth very much, an alternative concept is one put forth by Michel Bauwens and others as Open Cooperativism. The two concepts are not as similar as one might think.
What I like most about the book is its very clever use of the water analogy (drops become streams become rivers feed lakes and oceans); its starkly interesting positioning of collaborative commonwealth as being in the sweet spot between the extremes of predatory capitalism and unbridled socialism, and its combination of clear patriotism including a defense of all of the Constitutional Amendments with an equally clear indictment of the US Government as the “gang in possesion” looting the Commonwealth and helping the banksters — including the private bank known as the Federal Reserve — squeeze the last drop of blood out of We the Economic Slaves.
5.0 out of 5 starsRiddle (Family) Wrapped in a Mystery (Spies) Inside an Enigma (Finance), November 29, 2014
This is a book that requires a tiny bit of patience in the beginning and an appreciation of nuances throughout. By the beginning of the second quarter of the book you should be hooked. I found it to be a quite stunning weaving together of history, capital flight, corruption, and international financial ineptitude at the trillion dollar level. It held me to the end, I just had to be there for all the pieces to come together at the end as they did. No spoiler from me!
A few non-fiction books that I have reviewed that complement this one include:
5.0 out of 5 starsBrilliant, Intricate, Non-Violent, and Optimistic, November 4, 2014
In relation to the 2,000 plus non-fiction books I have reviewed here at Amazon, this book is brilliant. Normally I would consider giving it four stars for lacking an index and endnotes, obviously needed for the poorly educated morons that cannot grasp the many (many) direct references to top authors and thinkers. For crying out loud, Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century is received by the author in his home and cited in this book, as are so many others. So a solid five stars for impact and self-made erudition.
Let me state very clearly that the publisher has sodomized this author by not including an index, a bibliography, or endnotes. As the top Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, reviewing books across 98 distinct non-fiction categories, I am blown away by the clever, poetic, and pointed manner in which the author has integrated a vast (vast) range of reading and personal conversations into this book.
When New York Times report James Risen published his previous book, State of War, the Times ended its delay of over a year and published his article on warrantless spying rather than be scooped by the book. The Times claimed it hadn't wanted to influence the 2004 presidential election by informing the public of what the President was doing. But this week a Times editor said on 60 Minutes that the White House had warned him that a terrorist attack on the United States would be blamed on the Times if one followed publication — so it may be that the Times' claim of contempt for democracy was a cover story for fear and patriotism. The Times never did report various other important stories in Risen's book.
5.0 out of 5 starsSuperb overview, illuminates not just the negatives, but the positives as well, October 5, 2014
I bought this book in part because I have noticed a number of billionaires giving away $100 million to $500 million “chunks” to universities and non-profits that in my view are perpetuating what Rusell Ackoff would call “doing the wrong things righter;” in part because I myself am looking for someone to fund a School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance and a World Brain Institute; and in part because I have been utterly fascinated to see the 1% breaking ranks in the last three months, with a few of them, notably the Mars Family in the USA (Mutuality Economics), a few black sheep billionaires on the West Coast (Redemptive Economics) and Lady Rothschild in London (Inclusive Economics), all realizing that 100% corrupt governments are not working as they anticipated.
For me, this ia five star work. Certainly more can be done in this area, but in terms of researched detail and a coherent construct for the book over-all, I find nothing lacking.
The central focus of the book is not on the fact that the 1% have achieved their goal of assuring 100% corrupt governments (the USA and the UK being right at the top of that list) but rather on illuminating how the 1% have “pioneered new activist models of political involvement that combine electioneering, issue advocacy, and [directed] philanthropy.” What this means is that the super-rich are controlling not just the media, but state and local government, university departments and secondary school curricula, and most civil society discourse.
4.0 out of 5 starsGlass Half Full — Cannot Be Ignored But Also Off the Rails, September 4, 2014
Among all economists in the English language, I hold Joseph Stiglitz to be among the most enlightened and virtuous. When I formed a “dream” coalition cabinet in 2012, he was on it. His co-author is of less interest to me — finance geeks have been demonstrably impotent these past fifty years — and particularly those who fall prey to mathematical formulas lacking in social integrity — and I believe with book would have been stronger had Stiglitz either gone it alone, or collaborated with an educator such as Derek Bok. The book is also rooted in old lectures, starting in 2008, and it is focused on Kenneth Arrow's work, which is best appreciated on its own merits. See, for example:
The weakest point of this book, which does indeed have much to offer for anyone who cares about the future of academia, commerce, governance, and society, is that is “assumes” integrity on the part of the government, and that industrial policies are somehow going to corrupt deep ethical and intellectual failings across all major forms of organization (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental/non-profit). This is the same mistake made by Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update and the Club of Rome. The *losing* alternative to the Limits to Growth assumption that top-down government would deal responsibly with climate change and other high level threats focused instead on education from the bottom up — the central point of Will Durant's 1919 doctoral thesis, now available as Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition.
Better Than His Last One – Imagine What He'll Write From Prison, October 14, 2014
