Chris Hedge's and Joe Sacco's new book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, is a treasure. Hedges wrote the plain text. Sacco produced the text-heavy cartoon sections and other illustrations, which even I — not a big fan of cartoon books — found to enrich this book enormously.
Hedges and Sacco visit Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to examine the misery of the Native Americans who remain there. It's nice to think that we've corrected our crimes through political correctness, and yet they continue uninterrupted — unconscionably, intolerably, tragically. Here the human stories are told, and told by those affected and by those resisting and struggling to set things right. Ironically, the victims of the United States' first imperial slaughters are now disproportionately suffering the pain common to veterans of recent U.S. wars. That same pattern of widespread military experience is found in each of three other sections of the book as well, while other communities in this country have virtually no participation in the military.
Hedges and Sacco go to Camden, New Jersey, to examine the world of impoverished and ghettoized African Americans, whose lives have worsened by many measures over the past generation, despite the successes of the civil rights movement. Poor whites and others figure into the story as well, with special attention to those struggling to improve the world, whether on a small or large scale. Michael Doyle's voice is one of those from Camden residents that tell the story of decline and devastation that city has experienced:
Read this compact book in an evening–and think about it for a year. Robert Steele long as been one of our most interesting and challenging thinkers (although his writing is clear–a reflection of clear thought), and this book is a cri de couer, his “Give me liberty, or give me death!” demand that our government, our system and our citizenry rethink the far from benevolent disorder into which we have lured ourselves.
My review cannot do justice to the richness of thought compressed in this book. Nor do I agree with every proposition the author raises–that's not the point, which is to spur us to liberated, creative thought. But I very strongly recommend this book to every citizen, no matter his or her political hue, who is unafraid of facing the future and who dares to embrace change.
5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star (My Top 10%) Primer for Every Citizen,June 6, 2012
I've had this book in my stack of “to be read” books for some time now, and now that I have read it, I deeply regret not getting to it sooner. Although I have read and reviewed a number of vital serious books in this field, and list ten of them below, I have to say this is easily the single best book of the lot, and I put it into 6 stars and beyond — out of the 1,800 plus books I have reviewed at Amazon, fewer than 10% get this rating.
Perhaps because I had already read the ten books below, I was absolutely floored by the clarity, organization, precision, simplicity, intelligence, and general integrity of this book and its author. Please do take advantage of the Look Inside the Book feature that Amazon offers (click on book cover above). In seventeen chapters, the author has brought to the public a work of elegant explosive yet balanced and measured, FACTS with CONTEXT.
If you read only one book on the destruction of the US economy, the destruction of the US Republic, the destruction of legitimate governance in the USA, this is the one book I recommend. It should not only be read, but also shared. As I go back over the table of contents thinking about what to highlight (I no longer mark up books now that I donate them all as I finish reading them), I am just blown away by the medticulous, sensible, systematic, intuitively coherent manner in which the author starts with the fraud and treason of the Federal Reserve (neither Federal nor a reserve), and ends with his prescription for public banking that I heartily respect.
5.0 out of 5 stars End Result of Quarter Century Walk-About,June 5, 2012
Updated 27 June: Why on earth is this book in top 100 for Espionage? I can only speculate that because I am a former spy, trained over 7,500 intelligence professionals, and have been an arch critic of secret intelligence ever since my 1988 conversion experience, that those who know me or know of my work have tane an interest in the book. They are correct to do so. As the image I have loaded above with the cover, entitled “Intelligence Maturity,” clearly depicts, the craft of intelligence must evolve away from an obsession with spies and secrets and move rapidly through open sources and methods to M4IS2 (Multinational Multiagency Multidisciplinary Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making). Smart Nations and public intelligence in the public interest are the center of gravity for creating a world that works for all, not spies and secrecy that work more often than not for the 1% instead of the 99%.
Now that Look Inside the Book is up, I have deleted the table of contents and the list of opens I provided early on, and thank all those who went ahead with buying the book (Amazon has the lowest price I know of)—you helped put the book in Top 100 for Democracy most days since the book came out — Top 50 on 17 June. Although fleeting, these rankings are a small sign that the Open Source Everything meme has arrived.
The book evolved from my January 2007 keytone to Chris Prillo's Gnomedex in Seattle, the 64 minute video (and various shorter remixes including one that has gone around Anonymous circles) easily found by searching for < YouTube Steele Gnomedex 2007 > without the brackets. Contact Random House Special Markets to buy the book by the case at whatever discount is the norm for them. I am very eager to receive invitations to talk about this topic, especially in relation to the November 2007 “election” that pits one wing of the two-party tyranny against the other wing, with no difference for We the People.
I have to credit Tom Atlee, Jim Rough, Harrison Owen, Buckminster Fuller, Russell Ackoff, David Weinberger, Lawrence Lessig, Kent Myers, among many others, for the raw material that helped me flip the tortilla–this book is a rejection of tyranny, toxicity, and theft in favor of transparency, truth, and trust. I list a few books below, but point to all 1800+ of my non-fiction rewviews as relevant to the evolution of my thinking since I recognized the pathology of secret intelligence and rule by secrecy.
At Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog I have and will continue to post three short excerpts from each chapter (up to Chapter 5 as of this update), and also posted the 33 graphics as color slides, and an interview by Warren Pollock of myself, 11 minutes long. He is a gifted interviewer and video editor, extracted with precision and presented with flair.
This book completes the circle I started walking in 1988.
Robert Steele
ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, Endearing, Inspiring, Useful, Rooted in Reality, June 3, 2012
The author asked me if I would review this book, and sent me a PDF version. I've just gone through it and it earns a solid five. If you have any doubts, use Amazon's great Look Inside the Book feature, and read the specifics in the Table of Contents.
It was the table of contents that first impressed me. I've been an intelligence professional most of my life, and in the process of getting to 60 years of age, have developed four strategic analytic models that remains best in class today. I also read a lot — across 98 non-fiction categories, with the last 1,800+ books reviewed here at Amazon (and accessible by category at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog).
I say all of that by way of saying that the author's selection and articulation of the core issues facing humanity — immediately followed by the author's even more inspired outlining of key values, key behaviors, key perspectives — all with citations interspersed and talking points for parents or mentors or teachers and children — impressed me enormously.
5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars, Spectacularly SImple, Foundation Book for Epoch B Collective Self-Governance,May 21, 2012
I've been a driven over-achiever most of my life, and only started emerging from the “because I said so” culture so characteristic of the Marine Corps and the Central Intelligence Agency, when I realized in 1988 that everything we were doing was NOT WORKING, and I started looking beyond government, beyond command & control, beyond “rule by secrecy,” for answers. Tom Atlee and his book, The Tao of Democracy: Using co-intelligence to create a world that works for all were for me a rite of passage. Since embracing Tom's wisdom in 2004 I have read a great deal more. If Tom's book was my introduction to the world of collaboration and collective intelligence, then this book is my graduate-level portal in which I start the transformative process of moving away from impacting on”it” to being part of “it,” a more neutral invested role that stops trying to project “the” answer on recalcitrant bureaucracies, and instead supports emerging networks such as Occupy and the Tea Party and the Freedom Node to Tower to Mesh movement.
I rate this book at six stars and beyond (my top 10% out of 1800+ non-fiction reviews) for multiple reasons.Ā I will read it again and then donate it.
I grew up during the Vietnam War. I was seven years old when General William Westmoreland was sent to Vietnam by LBJ to take charge of things there. I was eleven when he lost his job and by then, had lost us the war. Vietnam was in the news the entire time, on TV, in the paper, in Time Magazine – as was Westmoreland's iconic chin. Being the son of military parents I'd early gotten the history bug and I was fascinated by what was taking place over in Southeast Asia, even if I didn't understand it well. As I grew older, and things over there grew worse, I began to wonder how we could possibly lose such a war (as I thought it was) against such a small country.
Lewis Sorely's “Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam” will tell you how. Sorely has the credentials for this book. He is himself a graduate of West Point. He served in Vietnam. He even served in the office of the Army Chief of Staff, General William C. Westmoreland, and taught at West Point. This isn't just a book by some journalist trying to get at the bottom of things. Sorely has been “at the bottom of things” and he has done the leg work over a period of years, talking to 175 people in his search for the events he here recounts.
