Civil Society – Page 4 – Public Intelligence Blog

2017/05/022017/05/01

Review: The Grand Self-Deception – A Libertarian Manifesto Against the Deep State – The Failed Welfare-Taxation Model of Norway

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

5 Stars — Destroys the Deep State in 479 Pages

I met the author of this book in Norway, when he interviewed me for Ny Tid (Modern Times) in relation to my nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, an interview that is on YouTube in multiple channels. I absolutely respect his combination of intelligence and integrity, and in any hearing that pits him against the Deep State, I would absolutely believe him and challenge the Deep State. This is his manifesto.

At 479 pages, with a fourteen page table of contents (Kindle users will love this, it is the deepest most specific table of contents I have ever seen in a business, economics, ethics, libertarian, or political book), this book is both a bargain at cost per page and a brilliant provocation with brain-bombs left and right.

God Bless Donald Trump — for all of Trump's failings as he rolls over and plays dead for the Deep State (with a reported promise of no less than $20B for playing his role) — we are indebted to Donald Trump for doing in 120 days what so many of us, including the Libertarian Party of which I am a member, have failed to do in a quarter century: made the Deep State a topic of common conversation. The mainstream “fake news” media can no longer repress this topic, it is mainstream.

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2016/09/21

KINDLE: Reflections on The People’s Army, The Constitution, & Grand Strategy – What Nobody – Least of All Clinton or Trump – Wants to Talk About…

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Budget Process & Politics, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

The People’s Army – the Continental Army rooted in home-spun militias – was formed and fought and won a war before the U.S. Constitution was written and signed in 1787. The Constitution – and the Republic – exist because the People’s Army, the Continental Army led by George Washington – leveraged the twin advantages of a righteous cause and home court to eject what was then the greatest imperial power on the planet. Of the 55 men attending the Constitutional Convention, at least 29 served in the Continental Army, most of them in positions of command. Understanding the relationship between the people from whom the early militias were drawn, the Army, and the Constitution, is essential to evaluating where we fall short today.

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2016/08/292016/08/26

Review (Guest): White Trash – The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Culture, Research, History, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Nancy Isenberg

The Hidden Aspects of Race and Class in American History, July 26, 2016 by Herbert Calhoun

This book explains the unsavory fine points of our national identity by probing and then exposing the not so well hidden loose ends that tie the bottom half of America's social hierarchy to the top half. It reveals that there is much much more to race and class than what we see at eye level. We learn here that the colonists who came to the Americas were very much a mixed bag.

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2015/07/112015/07/10

Review (Fiction): Twilight’s Last Gleaming

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Impeachment & Treason, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

John Michael Greer

5.0 out of 5 stars Goosebumps — very very real — the playbook for taking down the USA, July 9, 2015

I first read Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America, that was the serious book, and then this book and I have to say that the both go very well together.

This book is the playbook for how a hollow US military over-reliant on satellites for location and communications, over-reliant on carriers that are too easily killed by supersonic wave-hopping missiles, over-reliant on a very mediocre US air force that cannot maintain air superiority or long air-based supply lines, is smashed by the Chinese when an amoral thoughtless US presidency goes one regime change oil field hijacking too far.

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2015/07/052015/08/01

Review: Transforming the Dream – Ecologism and the Shaping of an Alternative American Vision

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Charles Bednar

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Synthesis, Starting Point for Anyone Who Wishes to Think Holistically, July 4, 2015

The author taught me most of what I retain in the way of political science fundamentals during our time together at Muhlenberg College, where he was former Chair of the Department of Political Science and an Associate Dean. We had not kept in touch since I left Muhlenberg in 1974, but in 2014 I reached out to him and bought this book immediately upon learning of its existence.

Published in 2003 by the State University of New York Press, this book was evidently not marketed at all, and little noted. That is a sad commentary on our times, because I find that the author has distilled multiple literatures into one coherent presentation, augmented by an original model that tells a vital story beyond Ecological Economics into Ecological Political Economy (in essence, politics), into Ecological Ethics and Ecological Pedagogy, two topics rarely covered by others.

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2015/03/232015/03/23

Review (Guest): The Utopia of Rules – on Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Culture, Research, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

David Gaeber

A Fresh Take on Bureaucracy

By Peter Richardson on March 19, 2015

What intense pleasure this book gave me, despite the dull topic: bureaucracy. Anthropologist David Graeber is perhaps best known for Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), which became required reading for the Occupy Wall Street movement. In that book, Graeber showed that the standard explanation for the origins of money, rehearsed in dozens of economics textbooks, was a fairy tale.

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2015/03/062015/03/04

Review (Guest): Revolution 2.0 The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power A Memoir

5 Star, Civil Society, Democracy, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Wael Ghonim

5.0 out of 5 stars The true origins of the Egyptian revolution . a must read now more than ever, May 5, 2012

By Wessam Elmeligi – See all my reviews

Wael Ghonim has become an iconic figure of the Egyptian revolution since he anonymously started the Facebook Page, “We are All Khalid Said,” criticizing police brutality in Egypt after young activist Khalid Said was beaten to death in broad daylight by the police in Alexandria for posting a video on police corruption on the internet. In the first few days of the revolution, Ghonim was kidnapped by plainclothes policeman but released later. He appeared on a talk show at a time when the protests were reaching a dead end. Instead of delivering a fiery speech full of revolutionary fervor as expected, he wept and apologized publicly to the parents of protesters who were killed during the protests, saying “don't blame us, blame those who are power hungry.” His tearful words ignited the protests again.

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