Review: Business Stripped Bare–Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Disease & Health, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Leadership, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational and Practical as Well
October 31, 2009
Richard Branson
I picked this up half-price at Copenhagen airport, and I liked it so much I have ordered Screw It, Let's Do It (Expanded Edition): 14 Lessons on Making It to the Top While Having Fun & Staying Green.

I must note that normally I would reduce one star–Virgin Books evidently has no clue–or no interest–in using the many Amazon tools provided to publishers (I am one) and therefore we are not seeing so little as a Table of Contents and the Index (always huge for me in evaluating a non-fiction book for possible purchase) or even better, “Look Inside the Book,” which is no harder than uploading the book pdf via Amazon Advantage. Bad dog.

Here are my fly-leaf notes.

Continue reading “Review: Business Stripped Bare–Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur”

Review: Prisoner of the State–The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Editors Did Great, Could Have Gone Extra Mile
October 31, 2009
Zhao Ziyang
Most people miss the two bottom lines that I found engaging:

1. China's government is a screwed up bureaucracy with petty egos just like ours.

2. China produced moderate pragmatist Premier Zhao Ziyang, promoted him, and empowered him.

With all due respect to all those wailing and moaning about the years of house arrest, this book is phenomenal for documenting the above two points alone, and Premier Zhao Ziyang will stand in history as one of the greatest leaders along with Mao Zedong (their rendition, I always preferred Mao Tse-tung) and Deng Xiaoping.

Review: An Enemy of the State–The Life of Murray N. Rothbard

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Biography & Memoirs, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Amazon Page
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Gfited Author Summarizes Gifted Libertarian Mind
Justin Raimondo
September 8, 2009

I was so impressed by the AUTHOR of this book and the manner in which he so ably presented in summary form the very complex economic, philosophical, and consequently political reflections of Murray Rothbard that I immediately looked for “About the Author” and did not find it. So let me start with the author rather than the subject.

Justin Raimondo an American author and the editorial director of the website Antiwar.com. He describes himself as a “conservative-paleo-libertarian.” In addition to his thrice-weekly column for antiwar.com, he is a regular contributor to The American Conservative and Chronicles magazine. Raimondo also writes two columns a month for Taki's Top Drawer. He has published three other books, the last one only available from Google Books:
Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (Background: Essential Texts for the Conservative Mind)
The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection
Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (AFPAC, 1996) via Google Free Online

As someone who appreciates complexity in all its forms, I found the author's intellectual endeavor in this book to be stunningly formidable. Of the over 24 books by Murray Rothbard, the author presented a coherent account of the high points, and particularly of these that merit further study:
Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market – Scholars Edition
Economic Depressions
An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (2 Vol. Set)
The Case Against the Fed
Wall Street Banks and American Foreign Policy

From my nine-pages of notes, respecting the 1,000 word limitation on reviews:

Continue reading “Review: An Enemy of the State–The Life of Murray N. Rothbard”

Review: A Time to Fight–Reclaiming a Fair and Just America

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Politics

Jim WebbUnusual, Thoughtful–Ideal as McCain's Vice President, June 17, 2008

Jim Webb

The next President is going to have to tear down the US military, resurrect the atrophied civilian instruments of national power, and recreate the U.S. government in a manner that allows us to eliminate the debt and the deficit while waging peace and successfully nailing isolated organized crime, corporate corruption, and individual terrorists.

This means that a Democrat need not apply (less Senator Sam Nunn as either Vice President or Secretary-General for National Security, overseeing Defense, State, and Justice). As I put this book down I was thinking to myself, estranged Republican that I am: “this guy is too good to be a Democrat (or a Republican!).” I stand with Senator Hagel who is calling for a new party and an end to the two-party spoils system How about Bloomberg-Webb? Or Bloomberg-Powell with Nunn at Defense, Hagel at State, and Webb as Chief of Staff?

I take away one star because despite the candor and the reflective tone, the surprising but welcome comments against both the military-industrial complex and the prison complex (most of which is based on marijuana and is used to create slaves for the corporations running the prisons), the author did not offer a strategic framework.

He mentions Tony Zinni with favor, and he does a good job of suggesting that many generals did in fact try to talk the civilian leadership out of the elective occupation on attack, but I for one do not buy the latter. What they should have done was had Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz arrested and turned over to Congress, and told Dick Cheney to go fly a kite.

It is my personal view that the Democratic and Republican parties are dead. A new political demographic is emerging in America, one that demands multiple parties, an end to winner take all control of either the Executive or any half of Congress, and an end to “party line” treason.

Jim Webb is not a Democrat. He is, as Ike so famously said in answer to Marshall's question, an American. It is just possible we may have found a leader for a new era, an era that demands the leader engage all of us in conversation, and not lead so much as facilitate and nurture. See the images I load above.

Right now, Chuck Hagel, Joe Biden, and Jim Webb are people I respect, and I hope they, rather than the staff pukes that do not read and have never operated overseas, have the necessary influence to draw our new map of the world. Combine them with Joe Nye, Tony Zinni, and a handful of others who have not sold their soul to the beltway bandits, and we just might have what it takes to fight smart.

This is not a political book. This is more akin to public philosophy aloud.

See also:
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love
The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Review: Never Surrender–A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Never SurrenderHelpful, Illuminating, and Inspiring, October 12, 2008

Jerry Boykin

I ordered this biography on a whim, as one of a dozen books on irregular warfare that I am using to review the thoughts of others before I publish my own book. When the three boxes from Amazon arrived, this book was buried under others, but was immediately the most attractive for the week-end.

Several important insights are available from this book:

1) Charlie Beckwith, whose book Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit I really enjoyed, especially the part where he refused to leave a British field hospital for an American one, learned from the SAS the most important lesson it had to teach, and brought it to DELTA: to be *truly* unconventional, to be *truly* irregular, you must be UNMILITARY. From this page (69) I simply relaxed and enjoyed a great account. I got what I was looking for, sooner than expected.

2) The 12-hour long march from point to point is a time-tested method of screening for individuals who have inherent resolve that cannot be trained for. I quote from page 78: “The Army can train a man to spy, shoot, blow things up, and kill with his bare hands. But it cannot instill in a man the series of two-sided personality coins that cash out as a successful operative: patience and aggression, precision and audacity, the ability to lead or fall in line. Above all, the Army cannot instill resolve beyond physical and mental limits.”

3) In the above context, faith is helpful, and faith cannot be taken for granted. Early on I enjoyed the author's explanation of how he reconciled faith with a profession that wages death (for life), finding that every war is a spiritual battle. The author explicitly identifies America as God's land of faith and tolerance, and I agree with him.

4) On page 130, he concludes that some men are evil and simply need to be killed. I agree with that completely. In the 1990's when I first started advocating the need to shift away from the Soviet Union and toward Third World terrorists and criminals, I used the phrase, “one man, one bullet.” We still cannot do that today, while the Navy and the Air Force continue to buy fewer really big things for more and more money.

I enjoyed every minute with this book. This is not a “shoot 'em book.” This is, as the subtitle communicates, the story of an extraordinary individual, a man born and trained to be the best possible fighter, who found faith and kept faith with God and America. He is “the way it ought to be.”

Here are some side notes.

Rumsfeld created the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence because he was furious that his Special Forces had to be “led” into Afghanistan by the CIA (see my review of Jawbreaker: The Attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander.

George Bush Junior betrayed all of us in crucifying and disavowing General Boykin in the face of media lies and exaggerations for which the author was fully exonerated by two Inspector General endeavors.

Media–the out of control largely ignorant media–is the best weapon that terrorists and others who hate America can use. I agree with that, and I am especially concerned at the ignorance of both our current presidential candidates, neither one of whom can talk substance in the context of a balanced budget–and they get away with it because the media has no idea what the substance of governance is (see the free online book, also on Amazon, 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).

9/11 struck the author as the opening salvo in a long battle for our own soul. I agree with the soul part, but the battle started when we decided to run the world for 50 years, very badly, while ignoring the spread of violent Islam funded by Saudi Arabia. See these four books:
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century

Other tid-bits:
+ 1 of three officers to make cut in creating DELTA. Peter Schoomaker was another.
+ DELTA pool was 118 of whom 25 finished the Long Walk, of whom 19 were selected (in the first class)
+ Boykin's dad was one of five brothers who served in “The Good War,” three in the Army, two in the Navy.
+ He was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 lbs in the eighth grade.
+ Played guitar and wound up playing at World's Fair in 1965 (the thought, “well-rounded” came into my head–not a thug stereotype)
+ Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets
+ Drawn to brotherhood of infantry, inspired by Viet-Nam stories.
+ One of his coaches taught him that faith and reality could go together
+ Once married, his first child drove him to the Dean's List
+ “I really wanted to learn everything the Army had to teach.”
+ Found faith for real in the Army, it filled a void.
+ He LIKED Ham and Lima Beans in C-Rats. That alone makes him strange in an amusing sort of way. I always thought of that C-Ration as one step down from bread and water.
+ He had his failures, in both school and the Army, but they drove him to excel and honors came his way when he bore down.
+ Aide de Camp tour in Korea got him to Viet-Nam for three months, and gave him a strategic understanding of the Army
+ Lost the general's dog, ended up running him down. Very funny.
+ Was one of the originals as paratroopers migrated into air assault.
+ Almost shut out of DELTA by the shrink for “excessive faith in God,” but he connected with Beckwith in the final interview and got in, the clear message being that the faith was not misplaced.
+ Excellent discussion of the time value of instinctive shooting (with the necessary training) over aimed fire–life of a hostage, the first takes one second, the second takes two seconds, time for the hostage to be killed.
+ Beckwith understood the killing nature of bureaucracy
+ I have a note, this book is the anti-thesis to Colin's Powell's biography, My American Journey and a shorter different book-end to Hackworth's About Face: Odyssey of an American Warrior

The author takes us through a number of operations in a manner that does not compromise any tradecraft and is not tedious. I appreciated very much the light once over on Tehran (the students thought they would have to get out in three days, they under-estimated the timidity of the US under President Carter), Sudan, Graneda which was not a surprise and for which CIA had no intelligence of substance for the fighters, Panama, Somalia, and then Bosnia.

Sixteen pages of photos are in the middle of the book, all appropriate and helpful. There is no index.

I thought to end this review with several of the phrases from the Bible that the author quoted in the book. I bought Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today's Leaders because it was on sale in the uniform store at MacDill, and now that I have read this book, believe that our Irregulars of the future will be well-served by being required to understand faith, and to memorize portions of the Bible, the Koran, and other Holy Scriptures (just think of the impact as shown in Lawrence of Arabia, when his completing a reading instantly won over King Faisal and sidelined the conventional colonel).

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 9.4-5

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40

“For they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings of eagles, they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40.31, faxed from around the world as he struggled to survive a 50 caliber bullet shattering a radio into his body.

Amazon won't let me have more than ten links, but this one, by Navy Capt Doug Johnston, is worth a close look: Faith-Based Diplomacy. There is an intersection of UNMILITARY, faith, and Irregular War: Waging Peace that no one in power seems to understand.

Review: Seven Pillars of Wisdom–A Triumph

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Culture, Research, Insurgency & Revolution, War & Face of Battle

Lawrence$4 extra avoids abridgement,October 9, 2008

T.E. Lawrence

I own an original first edition (and did not realize its value until recently), but in searching for this book to add a link from within my new book on Irregular Warfare: Waging Peace, I realized the reader is faced with two choices today, one costing $4 more than the other. I believe I found the explanation in the less expensive version, which is described as “severely abridged.” So all things being equal, buy this version instead.

There is no finer summary of this work that I have encountered in my literature search than “T.E. Lawrence And the Mind of An Insurgent” by James J. Schneider, Ph.D., a professor of military theory at the School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Previously published in 2005 in varied works, it can be easily found online by searching for the author and title.

My preliminary research for the new book shows that the Lieutenant Colonels/Commanders and some Colonels/Captains of the Navy get it, but the flags do not. Even the vaunted counterinsurgency handbook avoids dealing with three realities:

1. Absent a moral legitimizing strategy that includes a commitment to sufficiency of presence, no occupation will succeed.

2. Absent a national intelligence community willing and able to jump deep into Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2), no commander will succeed.

3. It costs asymmetric irregular warriors $1 for every $500,000 they force us to spend with our present idiotic emphasis on technology as a substitute for both thinking and human presence. They can keep this up forever, we cannot.

IMHO, Dr. Schneider's distillation is utterly brilliant, and if the publisher issues a new edition, I urge the publisher to obtain permission to include Dr. Schneider's distillation as a new professional preface.

Although I have a very very large personal library (photo at oss.net), here are the books I bought today as part of my homework. In the comment I provide the URLs for the pieces I have had printed locally.

Modern irregular warfare: In defense policy and as a military phenomenon
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War (Stanford Security Studies)
Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century
Guerrilla Warfare: Irregular Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Stackpole Military History Series)
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom
Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man

Two other books I already own within my ten link limit:
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

And everything written by H. John Poole, but especially Tactics of the Crescent Moon, Phantom Soldier, One More Bridge to Cross, and Tiger's Way. Also Col Hammes on Sling and Stone, Mao and Che, Max Manwaring's various works including Search for Security, Uncomfortable Wars, and Environmental Security….and on, and on, and on….IRWF is finally “in” now we just have to spend ten years waiting for the current flags to retire.

Review: McCain–The Essential Guide to the Republican Nominee

3 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Politics

McCainNOT a Guide–A Coffee Table Book, Lots of Photos, No Stats, September 3, 2008

Mark Silva

This book is on sale in supermarkets, and I spent time with both this book and its counterpart for Barack Obama.

I recommend both books as coffee table books, lots of great photos and general information about the individuals, but this book is NOT a guide.

There are no statistics, no tables, no comparisons, no meaningful GUIDE to who the candidate is and what they really stand for based on their actual behavior, votes, known acquaintances, etcetera.

What would be extraordinarlily valuable, if the publishers want to do a fast make-over, is a SINGLE book that compares all four candidates On the Issues and on their Values and what it all means for the federal government's future, the budget's future, and the country's future.

For an idea of what I am talking about, look online for “On the Isuses,”
and see especially the way they plot on a map relative differences.

See also the book below:

The Political Junkie Handbook (The Definitive Reference Book on Politics)