Democracy – Page 25 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/01/132010/01/15

Review: Rethinking Civilization: Resolving Conflict in the Human Family

3 Star, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Priorities, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

cover rethinking civilization — Amazon Page

Criminal Pricing in Sharp Contrast to Content

January 13, 2010

Majid Tehranian

I read a lot, and quite by accident (or courtesy of Dick Cheney who drove people back to books looking for answers) I am the top Amazon reviewer for non-fiction. I would have bought this book, along with the book I did buy today, Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis but one look at the price and a one word decision: NO.

This book is CRIMINALLY priced. As a publisher myself, I can assure one and all that in lots of 1,500 in hard cover, it costs at most two cents a page including color cover and graphics. Using the Amazon on demand printing option, the cost is even less. Authors must STOP allowing publishers to price their precious work beyond the reach of most people with a brain. I offer all my books free online as well as via Amazon.

Other books in this vein that are ethically priced include:
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World

and many more. Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, provides easy access to all of my reviews (over 1,500) in each of 98 reading categories including Catastrophe & Resilience, Cosmos & Destiny, and so on.

If the author will post this book free online, or if the publisher can be shamed into pricing it at under $35, I will buy it and review it.

2010/01/102010/01/10

Review: Peace–A History of Movements and Ideas

5 Star, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Future, History, Humanitarian Assistance, Insurgency & Revolution, Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

An Utterly Superb Intellectual Contribution–a Major New Reference

January 10, 2010

David Cortright

This book is a gift to humanity, a foundational reference of such extraorindary value that I earnestly believe it should be required reading for every single liberal arts program in the world, and used as a core book in all graduate international relations programs.

Part I reviews the history of peace movements; Part II reviews core themes of peace within religions, populism, democracy, social justice, responsibility to protect and wraps up with three cahpters on a moral equivalent, realizing disarmament, and realistic pacifism.

The footnotes, the bibliography, and the index are world-class. The paper is glossy and annoyingly unreceptive to ink, but as a library volume or one that does not allow notes, this is an absolute top-notch production at a phenomenally reasonable price. I have the note mid-way: utterly brilliant blending of works of others within own architecture–superior scholarship.

The book does not touch on the evolutionary activism, conscious evolution, integral consciousness literature, and this is not a criticsm as much as a roadsign: the following five books complement this work in a distinct fashion.
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness

HUGE EYE-OPENER; Pashtun Peace Army in Pakistan-Afghanistan, the Servants of God, discussed on pages 193 and 313. I've been working Information Operations (IO) and used to do Covert Action and I am pretty sure neither CIA nor DIA have a clue that this is a major historical movement that could be reactivated.

Continue reading “Review: Peace–A History of Movements and Ideas”

2010/01/102010/01/10

Review: To Lead the World–American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine

5 Star, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Strategy

Superb From Right of Center–VERY Satisfying Competent Collection

January 10, 2010

Melvyn Leffler and Jeffrey Legro

Of the three books I bought to explore this particular theme, this was the best by far and the only one to earn five stars. Twelve chapters, twelve authors, not a single runt in this litter. The notes are outstanding.

Although this book's contributors are out of touch with the results of the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, whose report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (also free online) is now the global standard for any serious strategist and every globally-oriented intelligence professional, what this group knows and share is valuable and I found this book totally absorbing over two nights of reading. They do not, however, have a grip on intelligence or how deeply we have hurt–and have been perceived to have hurt–the rest of the world.

Early on as I go through the book fast I am impressed by the balance between skepticism of the traditional thinking and spending habits (one size fits all heavy metal military) and a focus on the importance of having a broad capability that can respond to and impact on a diversity of threats most of which cannot be easily anticipated.

Some highlights, generally identifying the specific author

Continue reading “Review: To Lead the World–American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine”

2010/01/052010/01/05

Review: SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY–Latin America in the Third Millennium

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Fast Read, Ground Truth, Moral Truth, Priceless Insights

January 5, 2010

Michael Hogan

I received this book as a gift from the author after I reviewed Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, and I am very glad to have accepted his offer. At 218 pages double-spaced it is a fast read and perhaps even more valuable for that–this is the book that every US CEO and professional having anything to do with Latin America should read. I do not mention politicians because they are all uniformly corrupt and have been castrated by the two-party tyranny. This book holds special meaning for teachers who wish to restore their role as speakers of truth rather than as cogs in the Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling.

The book opens with a spectacularly cogent list of the damages caused to Latin America by the USA:

1) Military interventions followed by abandonment (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti)

2) Undermining of the democratic process (Guatemala, Chile)

Continue reading “Review: SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY–Latin America in the Third Millennium”

2010/01/042010/01/04

Review: Social Change 2.0–A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Undeniable Genius Isolated from Other Movements

January 4, 2010

David Gershon

This book is a work of undeniable genius and to that I would add peseverence–the author and his wife Gail Straub have been on the forefront of the personal empowerment movement from the late 1970's onward, and in many ways this book is a capstone work that bridges from the personal to the neighborhood and aspires to–but does not quite attain–the goal of being globally meaningful. I previously enjoyed and reviewed Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds–Be Part of the Global Warming Solution! but this is the book that moves the author into my pantheon of a dozen world-class thinkers on social change.

Early on the book grabs me in a Buckminster Fuller sort of way when the author emphasizes that not only do we have to re-invent the world, we have to re-invent the process by which we re-invent the world. Of course Jonas Salk and others have addressed that with Epoch B leadership, but not for mention here.

I am totally impressed by the 30 years of hard work at the grass roots level that the author builds on in this book, one of the reasons it is a solid five stars on its own merits.

QUOTE from page 45: “The intial test results from the first 200 households were very promising. Those households on average reduced their annual solid waste by percent, water use by 32 percent, energy use by 17 percent, vehicle miles traveled by 8 percent, CO2 emissions by 15 percent, and achieved financial savings of $255.”

Those are HUGE accomplishments, and severely under-stated because the author does not factor in the “true cost” of the savings, probably closer to $10,000 a person if not vastly more (fuel is actually a million dollars a gallon if you really value the time it took to create the fossil base).

Continue reading “Review: Social Change 2.0–A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World”

2010/01/042010/01/04

Review: Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee

6 Star Top 10%, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Future, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON FOR $15

THIS IS A ‘MUST BUY” FOR ANYONE WHO CARES…

Tom Atlee, author of The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All has been moved at this particular point in time to present to all of us with an extraordinary collection of short stories and paired poems that develope a very important new theme, that of Evolutionary Activism.

There is no other person who has had more influence on the activities of Robert Steele and the various endeavors of OSS.Net, Inc. and its multinational conferences (1992-2006) as well as the follow-on Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity pioneering the modern World Brain with embedded Global Game.

The bottom line: intelligence professionals (and politicians and policy professionals, but one thing at a time) should stop trying to produce answers and instead focus on producing a process that connects all stakeholders with both one another and with all of the relevant information including especially historical, cultural, and anticipatory information.

Below, honoring Tom and his gifted integration of science, spirtuality, and sacredness, is our blurb offered for the dust jacket, and our review. There is also a link to our rough Word Table, a device we use for the most serious books of import to the future of civilization.

I cannot do this inspiring book justice. I see it as a manifesto, a handbook–a gift of love and truth like no other. Tom Atlee, one of a handful of pioneers in the collective intelligence arena, offers all of us a launch point for what he calls evolutionary activism–thought and action that result in conscious evolution of both the individual and society. He stresses that the many tipping point crises that now threaten us (most of our own making) are in fact the perfect environment for calling us out to be creative, innovative, and adaptive. He points to three evolutionary dynamics guidance: the integration of diversity; a constant alignment with reality; and the harmonization of self-interest with the wellbeing of the whole. A marvelous tour of the emerging evolutionary activist landscape. — Robert Steele, CEO Earth Intelligence Network, #1 Amazon non-fiction reviewer

Full Review (and below the review, the Word Table):

Continue reading “Review: Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee”

2010/01/01

Worth a Look: Best Libertarian Books

5 Star, Democracy, Philosophy, Politics

Full Source Online

The Best Libertarian Books of the Decade

David Gordon

Click on the books to read the great descriptions that accompany each of the selections. Here we provide the titles and links to Amazon. * will be reviewed here. digets at end of each book are the original order in which books placed by David Gordon.

2001 Democracy: The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order (Hans-Hermann Hoppe) 04

2002 Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis (John Attarian) 01

2002 A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II (Murray Rothbard) 09

2003 The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Thomas DiLorenzo)* 02

2004 Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society (Robert Higgs) 02

2005 Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas DenUyl) 08

2007 Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism (Jörg Guido Hülsmann) 05

2007 The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Capitalism (Robert Murphy) 06

2009 Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (Thomas Woods) 11

2009 The Revolution: A Manifesto (Ron Paul) 07

2006 The Elements of Justice (David Schmidtz) 10