Review: Secession, State, and Liberty
5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Electoral Reform USA, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secession & NullificationReview: The New Rulers of the World
5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)I bought this book along with:
2005 Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World
2007 Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire
Published in 2002, it gripped me from beginning to end. Although I studied Multinational Corporations (MNC) in the 1970's and more recently, and am a fan of such books as Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations; The Manufacture Of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System, and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, what was new for me in this book and in other readings I have undertaken this past decade is the collusion between governments and corporations, both profiteering at the expense of the individual taxpayer.
The author is compelling in labeling politicians as criminal tyrants, and here in the USA I am happy to see the beginning of the end of the two-party tyranny in such books as Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny.
Review: Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World
5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Corruption, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Media, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & PropagandaThis is the middle book in the John Pilger set that I bought. The others that I am including in a review trilogy include:
2002 The New Rulers of the World
2007 Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire
Although the book is daunting at first site, at 626 pages, it is MUCH easier to read than Laurrie Garrett's Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, for the simple reason that it is a collection of twenty-nine stories by different investigative journalists and can be read in pieces.
Use “Inside the Book” provided by Amazon to see the range of the stories. This is mostly about government terrorism against its own people, or in a few instances (e.g. thalidomide, fast food) government complicity in corporate atrocities against the paying public.
Eight of the pieces center on Iraq from 2002 onwards.
I put the book down thinking along these lines:
Continue reading “Review: Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World”
Review: Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire
5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Corruption, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)2002 The New Rulers of the World
2005 Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World (29 authors, edited)
I read this book with the advantage of having first gone through the two listed above. C. Middleton has summarized the chapters so I will not do that. Here are my fly-leaf notes for those that follow my reviews (Amazon deletes votes from my 500+ “fans” something else that rankles).
Chapter 1. The entire nation of British CITIZENS that once inhabited the island group known as Diego Garcia was destroyed by US-UK secret agreement without Parliamentary knowledge. This is a crime against humanity, a genocide. The US Executive lied to the US Congress about the matter.
Continue reading “Review: Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire”
Review: Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education
5 Star, Leadership, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)Carol Gilligan
Amazon appears to be depriving customers of top reviews from the past–part of a concerted effort they have been making to ease the path for new reviewers, never mind the cost in lost wisdom. I am personally appalled that this incredibly important book, obviously in a new edition, has no reviews carried forward.
1988 is when this book was published, which for me means that in very personal terms, I have been “out of touch” and “unknowing” of the deep social relevance of this work and its focus on the caring voice of women (as opposed to the “justice” voice of men) in both psychology and sociology.
In a nut-shell, this book is a collection of edited works ably integrated by the contributing editors, which pioneered the “voices” discussion from the female point of view. While there have been many books about the voices of the oppressed, the indigenous, and other marginalized groups, this book focuses on the voices of women in their dialectic with men–women as “caring” men as focused on rational “justice.” I am reminded of Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West and E. O. Wilson's book,Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.
Underlying the female focus on caring is the female focus on intangibles such as community and good will…..so much so that I have a note, women may be the archetype of what it means to be human. The book opens very ably with observations about how detachment and dispassion are in fact moral choices with tangible outcomes and consequences.
Review: On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)I am so very glad to see this book at least available from some sellers in second-hand form. I still have my orginal hard cover from 1976 and took it down from my military shelf to appreciate it once more. I urge the publisher to re-print this book, and I would be deeply honored to be asked to write a foreword to the next edition. Norman Dixon has made a signal contribution that will long out-live all of us.
Although I despise Amazon for pre-emptorily deleting over 350 of my shared images to get rid of 12 copies of Bush-Obama sharing a face, I think so highly of this book that I have taken the time to scan and load my own original book cover. You can find all of my uncensored work at the Public Intelligence Blog.
This is nothing less than an essential reference in the leadership arena, and particularly in the national security arena. The author is a deeply original speaker of truth to power, and his work on the characteristics of incompetence, his chart on the role of “bull,” his discussions of the reactions to criticisms, the concept of “efficiency” in the armed forces, and his examination of both the kinds of relationships and the interplay among the authoritarian personality and “group-think” are all very very important.
Most of our military officers (in the USA) have for decades forgotten that they swear an Oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and instead they translate that oath into blind obedience to the chian of command, no matter how illegal, idiotic, or illogical those orders might be.
See also:
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
Who the Hell Are We Fighting?: The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
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
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
DVD: The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
DVD: Why We Fight