Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback – Page 5

2015/07/112015/07/10

Review (Fiction): Twilight’s Last Gleaming

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Impeachment & Treason, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

John Michael Greer

5.0 out of 5 stars Goosebumps — very very real — the playbook for taking down the USA, July 9, 2015

I first read Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America, that was the serious book, and then this book and I have to say that the both go very well together.

This book is the playbook for how a hollow US military over-reliant on satellites for location and communications, over-reliant on carriers that are too easily killed by supersonic wave-hopping missiles, over-reliant on a very mediocre US air force that cannot maintain air superiority or long air-based supply lines, is smashed by the Chinese when an amoral thoughtless US presidency goes one regime change oil field hijacking too far.

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2015/07/102015/07/10

Review: Decline and Fall – The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Politics, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

John Michael Greer

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Primer, July 8, 2015

I come at this book with something most readers do not have, over 2,000 non-fiction book reviews here at Amazon, and I mention it only because there are some negative reviews that I think are lacking in the larger context one gets from very broad reading. From my perspective, this book is an extraordinary primer and the author is gifted — truly gifted as a teacher and an explainer of complex ideas in simpler captivating terms.

There are many other books that go into greater detail on specifics, and I will begin by listing just four of them:

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2015/07/072015/07/06

Review: Base Nation – How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback

David Vine

Fundamental Work, Narrow, Understates Total True Cost

This is a five-star academic work, a superb up-to-date compilation of what can be known legally and ethically about US military bases in all forms from the formal to the undeclared and covert, around the world. It's inclusion in the American Empire Project puts the author in the company of such great scholars and iconoclastic observers as Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Robert Dreyfuss, Chalmers Johnson, and Howard Zinn.

The author provides a compelling combination of history, anthropological-sociological narrative, and political-economic calculation as to the cost of what some estimate to be as many at 1,000 bases around the world.

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2015/07/042015/07/03

Review: Killing Hope – US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

5 Star, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), War & Face of Battle

William Blum

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reference on the Toxicity of US Military at Direction of Political Criminals, July 3, 2015

This is the UPDATED edition bring this long-standing historical tour de force up from the last edition that ended in 2008, to 2014. This means that it includes the newest elective wars and the “swath of destruction” we have created from Central Asia down through the Middle East and North Africa to Western Africa, where we now lust for oil in Niger and Nigeria.

Over-all, this is a very precious book, and an essential reference on the history of US intervention, both military and clandestine or covert.

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2015/07/022015/06/29

Review: Bare Feet, Iron Will

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

James G. Zumwalt

5.0 out of 5 stars Oral History at Its Best — Relevant to Future Strategy, Policy, Acquisition, Tactics, June 29, 2015

I received this book as a gift from the author, a fellow Marine retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, sometimes mistaken for his father, Admiral Zumwalt. I have gone through it twice. It is immediately in my top five books on Viet-Nam from an intelligence point of view, the other four books being:

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2015/03/072015/03/05

Review (Guest): American Coup – How a Terrified Government Is Destroying the Constitution

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

William M. Arkin

4 out of 5 Stars. We Live in “Forever-War”

By Amazon Customer on September 22, 2013

Essentially: We now live in a time of “forever-war.”

The worry about the government instituting martial-law is sooo 1990's because we now truly live a martial life. And we've accepted it. There is no “over there” anymore when it comes to the militarization of our lives. Over there is here. We live to assist the government in everything. See something, say something. And the bottom-line of everything that the government does in the name of national security is not to serve, protect, or assist you but to preserve itself. It's all part of the Continuity of Government (COG) and it's been in place for many years but it spectacularly grew into the multi-headed hydra immediately after 911.

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2015/03/052015/03/04

Review (Guest): Lords of Secrecy – The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Warfare

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Scott Horton

5 out of 5 Stars.

Excessive control that is out of control . . .

By Still Singin' on February 16, 2015

LORDS OF SECRECY is one of the finest books I've read on national security “creep.” Scott Horton manages to retain at least some distance from obvious bias, but some of the information he lays out would cause any legitimate American citizen clenched teeth and a few well-placed emphatic comments.

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