Review: Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Crime (Corporate), Democracy, Future, History, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Four Pumped to Five to Stave Off the Ideologues
November 27, 2009
David C. Korten
I would normally rate this book a four because of its lack of reference to Buckminster Fuller (see Critical Path; the Open Money movement; or the literature on wealth of networks, fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, and collective intelligence, but I make it a solid five for three reasons:

1. Anybody capable of writing The Great Turning (Volume 1 of 2) (EasyRead Large Edition): From Empire to Earth Community

[DO NOT BUY THE EASY READ EDITION, AMAZON IS SCREWING UP IN FAVOR OF EASY READ AND NOT LISTING NORMAL BOOK] has massive credibility with me.

Review: The Practice of Peace

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Peace Through Open Space
November 26, 2009
Harrison Owen
The author gave me a copy of this book as a gift, after inviting me to lunch to discuss my review of Wave Rider (EasyRead Large Edition): Leadership for High Performance In a Self-Organizing World.

This book needs to be re-issued. It is a perfect complement to Tom Atlee's forthcoming Refelctions on Evolutionary Activism (Tom is the author of The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All–read my review of EA at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog.]

Although I knew the author was the founder of the Open Space Technology (OST) process, and recommend his book Open Space Technology: A User's Guide, I learn in this book that the other essential reader is his earlier book, The Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform.

This book does something I was not expecting: it directly relates, in a tight DNA-like spiral, the use of open space technology (process is really a better word) to the practice of peace. This is not a book on Quakerism–the author has made an original contribution that has moved me further down the road toward Evolutionary Activism (focus on connecting all humans to all information, not on arriving as specific answers)-but I better understand the value of such books as Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through the Quaker Tradition as a result of this reading.

ALSO unexpected, I found this book to be a handbook for a “Whole Systems” approach to peace and prosperity. The author writes of “Multi-Factorial Development” attempting to do that, but i have the margin notation that putting a bunch of singular discipline experts (one from each discipline) in a room together does not create in any of them the ability to *do* systems thinking (or sustainable design). See Critical Path and The Philosophy of Sustainable Design.

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Review: TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Electoral Reform USA, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended by habeas corruptus & Robert Steele

November 23, 2009
Dr. Evan Keliher
Edit of 9 Jan 11 in light of shooting of gentle lady of Arizona, a judge, and others.  I am leaving the original rhetoric intact, but I want to emphasize two things: 1) my enthusiasm was rhetorical, never anticipating the two-party tyranny blessing the the triple fraud (mortgage clearinghouse, Wall Street derivatives, and Federal Reserve) bankrupting all of us less the top 1%; and 2) many of us–millions of us–have been sounding the alarm for over a decade.  We're not as stuck as we think we are–those speaking of adding security for all elected officials are fools–the only security for elected officials is to be found in their being perceived as LEGITIMATE.  Neither do I believe that the ill-gotten wealth of the 1% that own America is threatened–but it will be if they do not take this terrible event in Arizona as a strong signal.  All that is required to get America the Beautiful back on track is Electoral Reform–restoring the integrity of a government Of, By, and For We the People.  Arizona is a “tipping point.”
Edit of 25 Nov 09 to complete review.

This book is a HOOT. It deserves to become a CULT CLASSIC. Nothing would please me more than to see 10 million copies of this book being shared across the land.

The author know Washington, knows the bureaucracy, and certainly understands the high crimes and misdemeanors that are so characteristic of Congress and the partisan White House (regardless of which party). Although a book of fiction, this book could well be a cultural prediction of the revolution that is brewing. Personally I support a General Strike that quite simply demands the same conditions as the author outlines at the end of the book, but for a fun thriller, a fast read, and a strong sense of the power of We the People armed with both knowledge and weapons, this book CANNOT BE BEAT.

Send a copy of this book to every public official whose blatant corruption you cannot stand. If you cannot afford to buy and mail the book, print the cover of the book and this review and mail them that.

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Review: Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect

5 Star, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Erudition Demanding Concentration–Need Lay Chapter or Pamphlet
October 12, 2009
Paul A. Rahe
This is an extraordinary book offering a very detailed and superbly integrated examination of the consistencies and differences among Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, both to illuminate precisely what was in the Founding Father's minds when they sought to create a Republic of, by, and for We the People; and how distant we have migrated from that ideal.

As other reviewers have noted, this is not for the lay person or even the average Libertarian, for whom I would like to see (and would benefit myself) a pamphlet or article version. This is erudition in its highest form, offering a painstakingly devised integration and application of the works of three author's to the question: “what is the ideal state of unfettered democracy, and where does the USA stand in that regard?”

The book begins with an utterly devastating full page quote from Tocqueville in which I underline the words “petty and vulgar pleasures,” “elevated an immense, tutelary power,” “a network of petty regulations,” and “it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born.”

Published in 2009 this book is totally current with our recent financial collapse based on Congressional failures of integrity combined with Wall Street moral hazard and bad judgment, and the author notes that as of 2008 25% or more of US citizens were not happy with the state of America or its government. I believe a more telling statistic is the migration of over 44% of the population away from the two-party tyranny and toward declared Independent status. See also:

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Review: Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

cover betrayal

4.0 out of 5 stars My Head Hurts–Time for a Black Caucus on Black Power
October 7, 2009
Houston A. Baker
My head hurts. After enjoying and reviewing Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics yesterday evening, I was not anticipating the firestorm of erudite adjective-laden brow-beating that this author delivers. Minus one star for beating several (black) horses to death, and as Reviewer Carter notes, not without meriting some of the same himself.

First off, this is a book that had to be written and must be read. There are, amidst the “wordier than thou” broad brush critiques, some real gems, some really engaging turns of phrase. It is unfortunate that the nature of the inquiry demands fairly personal explicit attacks on avowedly great black intellectuals, but there is some meat here.

Page 104: “Centrist territory is a rhetorical demilitarized zone where honest, committed, and historically informed proclamations on cause and effect regarding race, culture, morality, and gender in the United States can be studiously avoided, fudged, or simply made to suit the audience on hand.”

High points for me as a reader (white, Hispanic, seriously-angry populist):
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Review: Waiting for Lightning to Strike–The Fundamentals of Black Politics

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Leadership, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Essays, Fundamentals, a Corner Stone

October 6, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray

I was truly delighted to have this book arrive today, along with Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era, which I will write up tomorrow morning.

Although the essays date back to 1994 this book (and the one above) are both published in 2008 and I will first testify that this is a fresh book, very ably strung together, and it does indeed address the fundamentals.

I totally share the author's conviction that the war on drugs is a fraud that is in fact both a war on blacks and a means of populating the prison-slavery complex. I appeared in the DVD American Drug War: The Last White Hope testifying against the CIA for precisely this reason–the author does not discuss, but I am aware of, the close relation between laundered drug money and Wall Street liquidity, and I absolutely one hundred percent support both the legalization of drugs beginning with marijuana, and the eradication of SWAT teams and other forms of excessive militarization across America.

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Review: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (Universities), Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)
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5.0 out of 5 stars Potential Straw to Break the Camel's Back
September 19, 2009
Chris Hedges
I disagree with those who dismiss this book, however erudite their claims. The author first impressed me with American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.
Reading this book on the heels of Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny and Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, on top of my own cry of the heart in the preface “Paradigms of Failure” in Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography), I have to say in the strongest possible terms that this is a capstone book of great service to both those who know it all and those who know little at all.