Category: 5 Star

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Worth a Look: Local is Our Future – Steps to an Economics of Happiness

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

From a renowned pioneer of the anti-globalization movement, a primer on working towards a localized world

From disappearing livelihoods to financial instability, from climate chaos to an epidemic of depression, we face crises on a number of seemingly unrelated fronts.  This well-referenced book traces the common roots of these problems in a globalized economy that is incompatible with life on a finite planet. But Local is Our Future does more than just describe the problem: it describes the policy shifts and grassroots steps – many of them already underway around the world – that can move us towards the local and, thereby, towards a better world.

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Review: Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture by Donald E. Vandergriff

5 Star, Leadership

Donald E. Vandergriff, Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture (Naval Institute Press, 2019)

5 Star Potentially Epic – Could Turn US Military Into an Effective Force

Reviewed by Robert David Steele

I met the author through Col Dr. Doug Macgregor, USA (Ret), whose various books, but most recently and especially Margin of Victory, set the gold standard for strategic thinking. Just as Margin of Victory makes the point that wars are won or lost ten to twenty years before they are fought, by the good or bad decisions made in longer-term strategy, acquisition, and training (e.g. tracks versus wheels, integrated versus stove-piped), so also can this book by Maj Don Vandergriff, USA (Ret) be said to be a 20-years and out war winner (or war loser if you ignore it).

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Worth a Look: When Plants Dream: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism and the Global Psychedelic Renaissance by Daniel Pinckbeck and Sophia Rokhlin

5 Star, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Environment (Solutions)

In When Plants Dream, Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on society. Part 1 covers the background; what ayahuasca is, where it is found, and its cultural origins. Part 2 explores the role and practices of the ayahuasquero in both Amazonian and Western cultures. Part 3 examines the medicinal plants of the Amazon, looking particularly at the ingredients in ayahuasca and their therapeutic qualities, covering the most up-to-date biomedical research, psychedelic science and psychopharmacology. It also covers all the legal aspects of ayahuasca use. Lastly in Part 4 Pinchbeck and Rokhlin question the future of ayahuasca.  When Plants Dream is the first book of its kind to look at the science and expanding culture of ayahuasca, from its historical use to its appropriation by the West and the impact it is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

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Review: Catamarans – The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors

5 Star, Sailing

SUMMARY REVIEW

5 Star – Truly Superb Structured Overview, Most Ably Illustrated with Photos and Charts, Essential Pre-Reading Before Renting or Buying

Review by Robert David Steele

I have read this book twice and made note of a number of critical considerations to keep firmly in mind if chartering or buying.

This is a large size book (11″ x 9″) and superbly laid out.  The paper while glossy lends itself to pen annotation and I have the book heavily annotated.

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Review: The Trigger – The Lie That Changed the World – Who Really Did It and Why

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

5 Stars – Three Books in One — 9/11 Disclosure; Zionist Threat in Detail; and Role of Satanic Pedophilia as a Control Element

I cannot do this book justice in the way of a summary review as I did his most recent other book but as someone who has also published on 9/11 and taken a strong interest in the Zionist threat to the USA specifically and the world generally, I can certainly recommend this book most strongly after having gone through every page but not read every word.

At one level this is the most detailed book I have found that covers not just 9/11, but a variety of false flag operations and false narratives including the Oklahoma bombing and Waco. The criminality by the FBI and the Department of Justice that is detailed in this book could be used to bring indictments against a hundred or more serving or retired officers.

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Review (Guest): Obama’s Endless Wars – Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Obama’s Unending Wars – Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State

A Book Review

In his conclusion Kuzmarov writes,

Though packaging himself as a peace candidate, Obama ultimately proved indispensable to the military-industrial complex in his ability to sustain the illusion of humanitarian intervention and defuse anti-war activism.”

Kuzmarov’s thematic idea is well presented and well supported.  His writing is easy to follow and each section has a clear, well written summary highlighting the ongoing message of Obama’s complicity with the warfare state.

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Review: US Air Force Secret Space Program by Michael E. Salla

5 Star, Extraterrestial Intelligence, Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Military & Pentagon Power, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

SUMMARY REVIEW

Michael E. Salla, US Air Force Secret Space Program (Exopolitics, 2019).

5 Stars — Best Over-All Timeline, Best of  Related Books by Same Author

Reviewed by Robert David Steele

This book — the fourth in a series — is a capstone work perfectly timed to the President's planned disclosure of the past, present, and future space programs — the past an illegal program not approved by Congress; the present a program in flux; and the future potentially open and bright and including free energy for all on Earth (the primary secret of the secret space program).

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