Consciousness & Social IQ – Page 29 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/05/282010/09/11

Review (DVD): Unthinkable

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Democracy, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Reviews (DVD Only), Secession & Nullification, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen Director: Gregor Jordan

And Carrie-Anne Moss (Amazon stinks at listing all authors and actors)

5.0 out of 5 stars

Astonishing–Riveting–Thought Provoking–Beyond Five Stars

May 28, 2010

EDIT of 27 August 2010: The Intelligence Science Board, the top advisory board to the Director of National Intelligence, has just come out with firm documented conclusions against coercive interviewing and absolutely demanding non-coercive interviewing. People like Col stuart Harrington and I have known this for decades, but it is nice to have the following (full links at Phi Beta Iota):

The ISB study notably dissected the “ticking time bomb” scenario that is often portrayed in television thrillers (and which has “captured the public imagination”). The authors patiently explained why that hypothetical scenario is not a sensible guide to interrogation policy or a justification for torture. Moral considerations aside, the ISB report said, coercive interrogation may produce unreliable results, foster increased resistance, and preclude the discovery of unsuspected intelligence information of value (pp. 40-42).

Bottom line: all of you that hate this review (shoot the messenger) have the best of intentions but you have absolutely no clue about real-life. Intelligence, not ideology, should be restoring America the Beautiful. That will not happen until We the People wake up and recognize that there is a two-party tryanny owned and operated by Wall Street, and we are being treated as expendable pigs.

Edit of 28 June 2010: the voting on this review appears to mirror the divide in America between left of center and right of center, with no dialog. I encourage a dialog in the comments section and will respond on a daily basis. The world is NOT “win-lose,” it is only “lose-lose” or “win-win” or what one author calls “Non-Zero.” We can either die as a species, or live as a species, there is no “eugenics” possible as much as Henry Kissinger (who can never return to France) might like the term. There is only one “we.” What we lack right now is educated leaders with open minds who have integrity. This topic–torture–and this review–against torture of Americans by Americans–and these votes–American against American–are a window into our soul and what I am seeing is no basis for happiness.

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I am 57 years old, been a spy, did Viet-Nam (63-67) as the son of an oil man going through ten coups d'etat, did El Salvador where I was personally threatened with assassination by the guys running the country who did not like me talking to leftists, and so on. I am also one of the handful of Americans who signed the letter to Senator John “POWS in VN? What POWs” McCain against torture. The thousand five hundred non-fiction reviews I have done all serve as a foundation for saying that this movie is a MUST SEE for every American.

For some time now I have felt that the US Government is out of touch with the American public, out of touch with reality, and out of touch with ethics. Ethics is a really important word that has been central to my life these past twenty years as I along with a number of others have realized that most of what the US Government does in the way of both secret intelligence and global military operations is unethical, unprofessional, unrealistic, predatory, and generally a waste of the taxpayers' money.

This movie is not like Sum of All Fears or Live Free or Die Hard (Unrated Edition) or any of the other good guys win in the end movies. This movie focuses on our soul as seen in torture, and it very ably calls into question the idiocy of US foreign policy these past fifty years.

Continue reading “Review (DVD): Unthinkable”

2010/05/172010/05/17

Review (Guest): Dishonest Broker–The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Book by Nasser Aruri

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important book on the US role in the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

March 5, 2007

By	Edgar Hopida (San Diego, CA United States) – See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It seems like its the same negative reviews coming from the same people who have a seemingly blind support for Israel. Professor Naseer Aruri uses mainstream US, Israeli, and Palestinian sources to analyze whether in fact the United States government has been an honest broker in the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to the mounting evidence, US has in fact NOT been an honest broker, tilting more toward the side of Israel and placing any failure to the peace process on the Palestinians and their representatives. Also according to the documented history, Israel has enjoyed an immunity that is unprecedented in the international arena. For 40 years now, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been uncontested due to the fact that every meaningful international solution to the conflict has been vetoed by the US. US also continues to give over 3 billion dollars in military aid to the Israeli government to continue a very illegal occupation. According to the preambular paragraph of UN Security Council Resolution 242, “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Therefore, Israel's occupation of West Bank and Gaza are illegal by international law. One also should look at Israeli scholars like Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pape, Simha Flapan, Yosef Gorny, and others to corroborate such information. For human rights abuses that Israeli government commits on Palestinians go to the Israeli human rights organzation B'Tselem and other mainstream human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Once you compare the data to what the book presents and see that its dead on accurate, all the negative reviews on this site will seem ridiculous and show a blind following for Israel right or wrong rather than standing up for the truth regardless of who has it.

Review: Surviving the Toxic Workplace–Protect Yourself Against Coworkers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Worst Case Stories, Depressing, But Relevant, May 6, 2010

Linda Durre

Disclosure: the publisher sent me this book after asking for permission to do so, and I agreed to read and review the book. Then I got a job that took me overseas and I am just now catching up with my commitment on this specific book.

First off, this is the most comprehensive treatment I have ever seen and the typology that the author developed is very–VERY–scary on multiple levels, including recognizing myself in multiple categories including Socially Clueless, Angry, Rescuer, and Obsessives. Bummer.

I found the book absorbing. Although each “chapter” is really closer to a four-page blurb, there is nothing wrong with the typology, the substance, or the intentions of this book.

At best it should make most people grateful they do not work in a toxic environment. At worst it could be a wake-up call for those who have put up with extraordinary abuse, have come to think of it as normal, and might find this checklist approach to toxic environments helpful.

For me the best part of the book was the end where the author itemizes a number of class action law suits that have led to big wins for some groups, but sadly only have decades of litigation and decades of loss.

The stark reality is that both governments and corporations have forgotten that their mission includes the nurturing of their employees and the communities that host their offices. Ethics has gone down the tubes, and corruption at all levels is the norm. From where I sit, the healthiest route right now is to simply disconnect, move to Seattle, or Portland, or Alaska, and start over. If on the other hand you are a CEO, are being “born again” and want to get it right, then this book is a good introduction to the professional that can help your company get back on the right side of goodness.

Some other equally depressing books:
Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back

On the bright side:
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Revolutionary Wealth
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2010/04/262010/05/05

Review (DVD): The Blind Side (2009)

5 Star, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light, Democracy, Reviews (DVD Only)

Phenomenal on all fronts, April 26, 2010

This is a phenomenal piece of work that has joined a handful of DVDs that I watch repetively on background when doing light work in the office–others include De-Lovely: The Cole Porter Story; Beyond the Sea; and Joyeux Noel (Widescreen). Of course my youngest son–the athlete–and I also love the best of the best in football movies, including Remember the Titans (Director's Cut); Rudy (Special Edition); and Invincible, to name a few.

What sets this movie apart, in my view, are the nuanced facial expressions and the deep sincerity that the two main actors bring to the screen. I certainly regard the actor playing the hero of this film, the adopted son, to be in line for best supporting actor, or the other way around. Every time I watch this movie I find something I missed before, and I simply do not tire of that pleasure.

It troubles me that a movie as rich as this, telling a true story that is representative of what can be the best of America in a single individual doing the right thing for the right reasons, seems to bring little minds out of the crevices where they have been hiding. This is not a Christian movie, an anti-Christian movie, a bi-racial movie, or anything else. It is an American Story in the grandest possible manner. In no way does that excuse the continuing segregation and abuse of people of color, the really rotten education system for all, the two-party tyranny, the corruption of the US government at all levels–but in one small very real time and space, one family–one mother–got it right.

2010/03/152010/03/16

Review: Unvaccinated, Homeschooled, and TV-Free–It’s Not Just for Fanatics and Zealots

6 Star Top 10%, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Education (General), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Beyond Six Stars–a Game Changer, Pure Public Intelligence

March 15, 2010

Julie Cook

This book will join the Six Stars and Beyond group at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where I can group my reviews in the 98 categories in which I read and you can do a whole lot of other things such as search all my reviews for specific terms.

This book is deeper than most will give it credit. The author has done a great deal of research, presents verifiable notes, and offers up 27 short section with adequate but not excessive white space. I especially like the quotes, several from Albert Einstein, used throughout the book to highlight a point. I also especially respect the reality that the author speaks to directly: when Western commerce and medicine have been so corrupted by the profit motive, it is very difficult to find research that upholds the truth of natural and alternative cures, or that presents the truth about the dangers of our peverted health system that ignores all but the “profitable” quarter of health, surgical and pharmaceutical remediation.

See for example:
Prescription for Natural Cures
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink

This is a revolutionary book, and it joins others that make the case for rejecting the big government – big banks – big business triumverate that commoditizes people, loots the treasury, and rapes the Earth for short-term gain by the few against the public interest.

Continue reading “Review: Unvaccinated, Homeschooled, and TV-Free–It's Not Just for Fanatics and Zealots”

2010/02/202011/02/21

Review: SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa

6 Star Top 10%, Associations & Foundations, Autonomous Internet, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public), Media, Mobile, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Beyond Six Stars–Hugely Important Useful Collection

February 20, 2010

Edited by Sokari Ekine

Contributing authors include Redante Asuncion-Reed, Amanda Atwood, Ken Banks, Chrstinia Charles-Iyoha, Nathan Eagle, Sokari Ekine, Becky Faith, Joshua Goldstein, Christian Kreutz, Anil Naidoo, Berna Ngolobe, Tanya Notley, Juliana Rotich, and Bukeni Wazuri

This book will be rated 6 Stars and Beyond at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where we can do things Amazon refuses to implement here, such as sort useful non-fiction into 98 categories, many of the categories focused on stabilization & reconstruction, pushing back against predatory immoral capitalism, and so on.

When the book was first brought to my attention it was with concern over the price. The price is fair. Indeed, the content in this book is so valuable that I would pay $45 without a second thought. I am especially pleased that the African publishers have been so very professional and assured “Look Inside the Book”–please do click on the book cover above to read the table of contents and other materials.

This is the first collection I have seen on this topic, and although I have been following cell phone and SMS activism every since I and 23 others created the Earth Intelligence Network and put forth the need for a campaign to give the five billion poor free cell phones and educate them “one cell call at a time,” other than UNICEF and Rapid SMS I was not really conscious of bottom-up initiatives and especially so those in Africa where the greatest benefits are to be found.

I strongly recommend this book as a gift for ANYONE. This is potentially a game-changing book, and since I know the depth of ignorance among government policy makers, corporate chief executives, and larger non-governmental and internaitonal organization officials, I can say with assurance that 99% of them simply do not have a clue, and this one little precious book that gives me goose-bumps as I type this, could change the world by providing “higher education” to leaders who might then do more to further the brilliant first steps documented in this book.
Continue reading “Review: SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa”

2010/02/202010/02/20

Review: Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Read Fire Side Chat Review–This is Supplemental

February 20, 2010

William Greider

Very rarely do I find reviews as lengthy as my own. Please read and appreciate the Fireside Chat review that is deservedly popular with readers. I first encountered William Greider while managing the international conference on “National Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” and I realized that the way the US Government was mis-managing our democracy and our public commons was central to the demise of America. The two books I have most appreciated by him are Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy and The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy but I have to remind myself that before I knew him personally I had also read and appreciated Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country as well as One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (Hardcover).

I like the “fireside chat” description of this book and am providing my own summary primarily for my own benefit and the benefit of those that follow all of my non-fiction reviews at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog where all of my reviews, in 98 non-fiction categories, are more easily exploited than here at Amazon (but they all lead back to Amazon.

QUOTE (1): We live in a country where telling the hard truth with clarity has become taboo.

QUOTE (7): From the birth of our nation, it was always ordinary people, pushing from the bottom against an entrenched status quo, that led to the most momentous changes in American life.
Continue reading “Review: Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”