Review: Wingnuts–How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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John P. Avlon

4.0 out of 5 stars Theater–Follow the Money to Understand

October 28, 2010

Unquestionable a great book, with one big missing piece: it does not follow the money back to Wall Street. Buckminster Fuller understood in the 1960's that the White House had become theater, I did not understand his meaning until the economic meltdown and my noticing that Goldman Sachs has provided the Secretary of the Treasury for the last six or so Administrations.

The Tea Party, a grand mix of idealistic individuals who really think they have a shot at making a difference, is funded by the Koch Brothers, and all the other wing-nuts this book discusses all have financial underpinning that serve a purpose: to create theater. They are the American version of a political circus that keeps people's eyes off the raw fact that the US is a two-party tyranny with election manipulation so embedded that we no longer qualify as a democracy according to international standards.

NOTE: To investigate funding yourself, just search, my preferred search portal is Duck Duck Go, for <Koch Tea Party funding>

Wing-nuts is an “order of battle” for the extremist fringe, but it does NOT explain why the US government and US economy are in the toilet. For that we need just one word: INTEGRITY (lost).

The wing-nuts are getting their time in the sun because the extreme wealthy that have hollowed out America, exported all the skilled jobs, allowed illegal immigration so they could pay even less for unskilled labor, are now nervous. Bush Junior did his eight, Obama gave Wall Street four more years, right now the best that Wall Street can think of is making the next four years a complete circus.

`All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing' (or words to that effect). Edmund Burke and Justice Brandeis are both cited on this one. It says a lot when two comedians make more sense and demonstrate more integrity than all of our Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branch officials. Perhaps it really does take a comic (or two) to save a Nation.

Just one of many books supporting my suggestion that this is all theater:

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

My own book, 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) is also free online and provides a sane intelligent alternative to wing-nut theater and the two-party tyranny funded by Wall Street, led by Goldman Sachs.

You can find all of my non-fiction reviews sorted into 98 categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. I have also created lists of reviews (e.g. corruption, education) and two master lists. The negative list is everything that is wrong with America and the world, the positive one everything that is right or could be right. Both those lists are also at the Huffington Post. It's time to restore the integrity of our Republic, that must of necessity begin with Electoral Reform.

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Review: Blue Gold–The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Economics, Environment (Problems), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Plus Foundation Work,

August 28, 2010

Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke

I read the authors' more recent Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water yesterday and watched the also more recent Blue Gold: World Water Wars last night, all in the context of raeding 12 books on water I bought for a UNESCO project I had to drop from when I joined the UN in Guatemala (which I am leaving 31 August).

This is a six-star and beyond foundation work, and even though I continue to think that Marq de Villier's Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource is the original tour d'force (published in 2001), and that the The Water Atlas: A Unique Visual Analysis of the World's Most Critical Resource is still the best buy over-all, this book joins with Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit as a foundation contribution. The authors received the Right Livelihood Award, called the Alternative Nobel, for the work that this book represents, so I urge readers to dismiss the ideologically-rooted and intellectually dishonest appraisals of this book as leftist pap.

Published in 2002, this book is more of an overview briefing, and it does that very well. I learn early on:
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Review (DVD): Blue Gold–World Water Wars

Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Reviews (DVD Only), Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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5.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile, Not as Epic as I Hoped, But Still Tops

August 27, 2010

Malcolm McDowell

I'm watching this in the context of reading and reviewing twelve books on water before I leave Guatemala. Having read Marq de Villier's book, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource several years ago, and more recently The Water Atlas: A Unique Visual Analysis of the World's Most Critical Resource, this movie is a collage. I recollect Human Footprint and The 11th Hour as better films but this one is focused and I am coming down on a five rating.

The tid-bits are certainly a pleasure to watch….
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Review: Water Wars–Privatization, Pollution, and Profit

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Insurgency & Revolution, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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5.0 out of 5 stars Original, Grounded, a Foundation Book

August 27, 2010

Vandana Shiva

Published in 2002, this is a foundation book within the twelve books on Water that I am reading, with all reviews both here and at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog where you can easily use Reviews/Water to see all my reviews of books on water.

Right up front the author impresses me with her discussion of the paradigm war–a culture clash–between those who see water as sacred and its provision as a duty for the preservation of water, and those that view water as a commodity and its exploitation for profit as a fundamental corporate right.

Up front she lists and discusses the key lessons she has drawn:

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Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man’s Epic Journey for Love and Peace)

6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Information Operations, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star and Beyond–Deep Soul-Moving Raw Truths

August 26, 2010

Joseph David Osman

I had the privilege of reviewing this book before it was published. Below is what I provided for use in publicizing the book, followed by my more detailed summary review provided here for the first time.

I have goose-bumps as I contemplate this book that I have just finished in galley form. The author is unique, a mix of Philip Caputo (Rumor of War), Robert Young Pelton (Come Back Alive), and Ralph Peters (Wars of Blood and Faith), with one huge difference–this man, this author, this son of Afghanistan who is red, white, and blue American–has given us the definitive book on all that is wrong with the American “way of war,” at the same time that he so clearly, so explicitly, so very simply, outlines the alternative path of how we can, we must, “wage peace” in Afghanistan. I am reminded by this author of Bonheoffer, of Gandhi, of Nelson Mandela. This is a book in which the souls of two nations come together, both dark and light, and we see in very personal terms, with deep cultural intelligence, that Afghanistan is unconquerable by force, but desperately seeking to connect and respond to kindness. It shames me that our government is so inept–and our population so abjectly disconnected from reality–that we have repeated Viet-Nam. Bagram Air Base is the Binh Hoa Air Base of my time; we once again seek to win hearts and minds while looking and acting like Darth Vader; and our military prisons are again filled with individuals framed by their enemies, imprisoned by gullible naĆÆve uninformed Americans who mean well, but who are simply not trained, equipped, nor organized to wage peace.

Robert David STEELE Vivas
Co-founder USMC Intelligence Center, #1 Amazon Reviewer for Non-Fiction, Author on Intelligence

Highlights for me personally as a former Marine (1976-1996) who lived in Viet-Nam as a pre-teen from 1963-1967:

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Review: The World Is Open–How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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5.0 out of 5 stars 6 STAR Wake Up Call for All Educators

August 19, 2010

Curtis J. Bonk

UPDATE 21 Aug 2010 to add two graphics.

I've seen educators struggle to herd their faculty cats, hire staff under industrial-era rules, and strive to accommodate students that know more than their professors about anything outside the “teach to test” topic. This is one of three books that I have digested these past ten days, along with Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education and (in galley form) Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World. All three are 6 STAR books, and since I have only given this grade to 99 books out of the 1636, so at 6% of the total, this is saying a lot IMHO. These three books together, along with Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!, The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University: Information Age Global Higher Education (Praeger Studi) and my favorite deep books, Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition and Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, comprise a basic library for anyone wishing to develop global strategies for taking any university into the future. Of course there are other great books, but in my limited experience, these are a foundation.

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK without first looking at the web site WorldIsOpen.com, and more specifically, the only part of the website that I found to be essential, the sixteen pages of links to every online resource mentioned in the book. Had I done this first, I could have cut my note-taking time in half. As it is, I have created a sixteen page alphabetized list of all the references, and include that in my more robust review of this book at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I can do things (such as link to my other 80+ education book reviews and include non-Amazon links) that Amazon simply will not allow.

BUY THIS BOOK. It is in my view an essential foundation for any university as well as any lower school or continuing education and training program that desires to increase its effectiveness by a thousand fold while also increasing its global reach by a million fold.

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Review (Guest): Cognitive Surplus–Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

6 Star Top 10%, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Recommended by Dr. Kent Myers.Ā  Eleveated by Phi Beta Iota to 6 Stars and Beyond because this book is much more readable than Wealth of Networks and captures the essence for the general reader in a manner more likely to accelerate understanding and transformation.

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended as THE book to understand the fundamentals of social media collaboration

June 27, 2010

Reviewed by M. McDonald

Clay Shirky captured the ethos of social media with his book Here comes everybody. He follows that book up with one that concentrates on the fundamentals of turning our cognitive surplus into value. Cognitive Surplus provides a compelling and clear description of the fundamentals of social media and collaboration as well providing principles that are guiding developments and innovation in this space.

There are many books out there that either describe the social media phenomenon or profess to provide a `recipe' for success. Neither of these approaches can provide you with the insight needed to effectively experiment and deploy social media for the simple reason that social media is changing too fast.

The book is organized into seven chapters that outline a complete way of thinking about social media.

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