Culture, Research – Page 47 – Public Intelligence Blog

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

2010/03/28

Review (DVD): Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

5 Star, Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Reviews (DVD Only)

Original, Totally Absorbing, and a Great Cast

March 28, 2010

Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes

Not sure why Eva Mendes is not listed by Amazon in the credits. This movie is already very hot in the Latin American bootleg circuit and I watched it this quiet Sunday. As another reviewer observes, this movie has not gotten the publicity it merits, and that surprises me. On balance, a four at the cinema and a solid five for home viewing.

Movie has Eva Mendez (super-star in Hitch (Widescreen Edition), and I cannot see why Amazon lists Cameron Diaz in the credits.

I found it engrossing in part because it does a super job of showing a number of ways in which cops, sometimes in league with other cops, prostitutes, and often on their own, can shake down everyone from the careless suburban types in the big city for a night, to high rollers with connections, to major regional drug pushers.

Definitely recommended.

See also reviewed today:
The Limits of Control

2010/03/28

Review (DVD): The Limits of Control (2009)

5 Star, Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Reviews (DVD Only)

a a DVD limits of control — Amazon Home Page

Great Medley–Bete Noire Meets Good Bad and Ugly, The Mexican

March 28, 2010

Isaach De Bankolé

Strongly recommended for those that have my tastes in DVDs and have enjoyed my recommendations in the past. This movie was fun to watch, relaxing, intriguing, and totally enjoyable.

It reminded me of a mix among The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe – with ENGLISH subtitles (Import), The Mexican, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

For me, this movie is NOT over-played, its a great combination of some good and bad clandestine tradecraft, some sparkling lines (am re-learning French and appreciate anything with French actually spoken), some artful nudity, some real art, and over-all, a smooth panorama.

A pleasure to watch.

2010/03/272010/03/28

Review: Endless War–Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Geography & Mapping, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

27 March 2010: Full spread sheet and optimal links added below Amazon review.GOT TO RUN, Links later today.

Beyond Five Stars…Gifted Mix of Intelligence, Integrity, Insight Deeply Rooted in History and Firmly Focused on Today's Reality

March 21, 2010

Ralph Peters

I do not always agree with Ralph Peters, but along with Steve Metz and Max Manwaring, both at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army, I consider him one of America's most gifted strategists whose integrity is absolute. He simplifies sometimes (e.g. Iraqis turned against Al Qaeda because of the demand for marriage that was refused followed by the bloodbath execution of the family by Al Qaeda, not because of anything the US did) but that aside, Ralph is the ONLY person that reminds me of both Winston Churchill–poetry and gifted turns of phrase on every page–and Will Durant, historian extraordinaire. Ralph has a better grasp of history, terrain, and the military than Robert Kaplan, and deeper insights into our failed military leadership (no longer leaders, just politically-correct administrators out of touch with reality) than my favorite journalist-adventurer, Robert Young Pelton.

I have read and reviewed most of Ralph's books, and am proud to consider him a colleague and a fellow Virginian. Ralph is the only author whose books jump to the top of my “to read” pile, and I absorbed this masterpiece over the course of moving my own flag from Virginia to Latin America. US national and military intelligence have completely given up their integrity, and it resonated with me that the key word that Ralph uses throughout this book–a word I myself adopt in my latest book in carrying on the tradition of Buckminster Fuller on the one hand, and most respected mentor-critic Chuck Spinney on the other–is that very word: INTEGRITY.

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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.

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2010/02/22

Review: China Safari–On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa

5 Star, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Economics, Information Operations, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Engaging, Earnest, New Insights, a Great Contribution

February 22, 2010

Serge Michel, Michel Beuret, Paolo Woods (Photos)

Of the modest number of books focused on China in Africa, this is one of the two best, and both are unique–if you buy only one, at least read my summary of the other, China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence Whereas this book is direct journalism with wonderful color photos and direct ground-truth stories, China Into Africa is a best in class collection of academic essays.

Sixteen full pages of color photos in the middle of the book were unexpected and a complete delight.

On balance between the two books, this one taught me more and provided insights I could not get elsewhere to include the clear understanding, documented across multiple encounters by the authors, that the Chinese consider any Chinese business area or housing area of, by, and for their Chinese workers, to be sovereign territory of China immune to indigenous inspection or intervention.

Highpoints for me:

+ Africa is undergoing a huge transformation, and in combination, the infusion of Chinese infrastructure with the discovery of new energy fields and the growing need of all for what Africa has, is creating a perfect environment for a wealth explosion, and the US is missing it.

+ US has given up in Africa, in large part because the US Government other than the military does not have the resources, the human capital, the area knowledge, or the innate interest to actually do something strategic. The Chinese, in contrast, are unifying and pacifying Africa with infrastructure and commerce, while gaining direct access to natural resources that they can take possession of at half the market value by controlling the supply chain and no doubt lying about how much they are extracting.

+ Chinese presence in Africa is vertically and horizontally integrated, to include relatively thorough exploitation of what I have named the eight tribes of intelligence (academic, citizen-civil sector, commercial, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental), the Chinese appear to be way ahead of the US and all others in the Information Operations (IO) domain.

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