Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback – Page 23

2009/12/122011/10/22

Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Five for the Voice, Four for the Substance

December 12, 2009

Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann is one of a handful of individuals that I consider to be true guides for the rest of us, and I consider two of his earlier books, Cracking the Code and SCREWED, to have been instrumental in my own transformation from recovering spy to intelligence officer to the public.

The book does cover a lot of ground lightly, but it is coherent, and because it is Thom Hartmann, whose voice is hugely important to all of us, I settle on a five instead of a four. Other books that complement this one include Tom Atlee's The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All, Jim Rough's Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People, and The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy.

Here are my notes:

+ Book may be missing pages, mine starts at page xi (Preface) so I am left wondering, what happened to i through x?

+ Book opens with quotes from Einstein and Schweitzer with respect to the urgency of widening our circle of compassion to include ALL living things, and explicitly ALL humanity.

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2009/12/012009/12/01

Review: The End of Money and the Future of Civilization

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, History, Impeachment & Treason, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

EXTRACTS from A Book Review by Richard C. Cook (FREE VERMONT MEDIA)

It’s too late for anyone to pretend that the U.S. government, whether under President Barack Obama or anyone else, can divert our nation from long-term economic decline. The U.S. is increasingly in a state of political, economic, and moral paralysis, caught as it were between the “rock” of protracted recession and the “hard place” of terminal government debt.

. . . . . . .

Thomas Greco, in his new book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (Chelsea Green: 2009) , outlines the increasingly familiar story of how things got so bad, and he tells it as well as anyone has ever done. His style is precise and sometimes academic. Behind it, though, is a passion for truth and the type of rock-solid integrity that refuses to sugar-coat a very bitter pill.

More than that, Greco writes about how to change what has gone wrong. His credentials as an engineer, college professor, author, and consultant are impeccable. His book is among the most important written in this decade. It is truly a book that can alter the world and, if taken seriously, give large numbers of people a practical way to survive the gathering catastrophe.

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2009/10/272009/10/30

Review: The Fourth Star–Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army

3 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Insurgency & Revolution

Been There, Done That, Shinseki & LISTENING

October 26, 2009

Greg Jaffe

This is unquestionably a great book but it is so narrow, and so oblivious to the larger context within which the U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki GOT IT RIGHT and knew exactly what was needed, and the impeachable offenses of Chenez, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith, that I have to respectfully limit it to three stars in order to make the points that no one seems to want to acknowledge:

1) General Powell let us all down when he failed to resign on principle and challenge Cheney who committed 23+ documented impeachable offenses, including letting 9-11 happen and taking us to war against Iraq for the oil, on a platform of 935 documented lies. ALL of our generals, but Colin Powell especially, should be shamed for not protecting America against domestic enemies bent on bankrupting the country morally and financially

2) General Shinseki, and General Schoomaker, and General Garner all got it right, but did not go the distance in challenging a corrupt civilian leadership. I have often fantacized about what would have happened if Shinseki had thrown his stars on the table, resigned, and thrown Wolfowitz down the steps of Capitol Hill as he so richly deserved.

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2009/10/122011/10/22

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)

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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2009/10/062009/10/07

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)

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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2009/10/022009/10/02

Review: The Sword of the Prophet

5 Star, America (Anti-America), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Much More Than a Novel, This Is the Real Deal

October 2, 2009

Phillip Oliver Otts

As a recovering spy who has published and agitated for intelligence reform over the years, I generally have little patience for spy novels less the George Smiley series by John Le Carre. Been there, done that. This book is nothing short of sensational, and at $9 a huge value.

This book is so very good that I am making it one of THREE books I recommend to future spies and those who wish to understand the human side of the spy world today (or course there are many others but this one is special). The other two are still:

1. The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World

2. Without Cloak or Dagger : The truth about the new espionage–

I liked this book on multiple levels. It does for the clandestine service, where we were obscenely proud of having the highest alcoholism, adultery, divorce, and suicide rates in the US Government, what James Webb did for the abuse of military forces by craven politicians in Fields of Fire.

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2009/09/282009/09/29

Review: JFK and the Unspeakable–Why He Died & Why It Matters

6 Star Top 10%, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Stake in the Heart of National Security State

September 28, 2009

James W. Douglas

The premise is that JFK went against the national security establishment, notably the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex, and was assassinated by deliberate plan of the CIA, with Richard Helms, David Atlee Philips, David Sanchez Morales, and Desmond Fitzgerald specifically culpable for high crimes of treason.

As with 9/11 and the documented culpability of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Larry Silverstein, and Rudy Gulliani, there is insufficient proof in this book for conviction, but it is more than ample to demand a very intrusive and comprehensive investigation of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the FBI. I *want* to believe Helms when he says CIA did nothing not ordered by a President. However, if the premise of this book is proven, CIA should be abolished, its HQS demolished, and salt plowed into the earth at Langley.

The book's most positive account is of the back-channel dialog JFK developed with Khrushchev, Castro, and the Pope, dialog that not only defused the confrontations of the time, but also ended the Cold War. The theology of peace, the role of Monk Thomas Merton, the role of Norman Cousins (author of The Pathology of Power – A Challenge to Human Freedom and Safety), the role of the Pope and Pacem in Terris, and the strength JFK drew from a single meeting with Quakers are moving. This is in many ways a resurrection of JFK and both an epitaph worthy of his unsung accomplishments, and a call to arms for achieving closure–truth and reconciliation–with respect to his assassination by US Government personnel committing treason.

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