Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform) – Page 31

2009/12/072009/12/07

Review (Guest) DVD: I.O.U.S.A. DVD on US Bankruptcy

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Reviews (DVD Only)

David Walker (Peter G. Peterson Foundation), Bob Bixby (Concord Coalition) Director: Patrick Creadon

Product Description: America is on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions. Over 125 minutes of bonus materials, including exclusive interviews with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan and others.

Phi Beta Iota: Walker was Comptroller General and briefed Senate in 2007 on bankruptcy. He resigned in the 9th year of a 15 year term. Peterson, his sponsor, is the author of Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About I.

5 stars an outstanding and informative film, April 22, 2009

By Matthew G. Sherwin

I.O.U.S.A. educates people about the very real and very dangerous financial problems our government is facing. The producers of the film pull no punches here and they don't sugar-coat it; and that was the right thing to do. The way Americans live today is essentially “living for the moment” without thinking of the importance of saving money for a rainy day; and the film goes into great, great detail highlighting that the American government does the same. I will tell you just some of the points made by this movie; although it will seem as if I've given it all away I assure you that I haven't.
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2009/12/042009/12/04

Review: The Real Global Warming Disaster

6 Star Top 10%, Associations & Foundations, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Media, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Beyond 6 Stars–Could Help Destroy Strong, Gore, & IPCC

December 4, 2009

This is a preliminary review as there are no others. I will spend the week-end creating a timeline, sorting out the good guys and the bad guys, and charting the costs real and projected.

Short version: bad science, bad media, bad politics, bad finance.

Two other books I have reviewed that support this one:
The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity
Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming

This book also helps reinstate Lomborg, whom I am ashamed to say I doubted after he was first denounced (publicly) and then redeemed (quietly) in Denmark. See my reviews of:
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage)

I list these–and point to others at the end of this preliminary review–to make the point that this author's stellar and very complete work with very good notes is the coup de grace–the final bullet in the head of the IPCC, a mercy killing long over-due. [Disclosure: I funded the first three years of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity that accepts the ten high-level threats to humanity for action, and places climate change within priority #3, Environmental Degradation–we also place a very high priority on clarity, diversity, integrity, and sustainability of effort.

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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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2009/11/252011/10/22

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

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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2009/10/31

Review: Prisoner of the State–The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Editors Did Great, Could Have Gone Extra Mile

October 31, 2009

Zhao Ziyang

Most people miss the two bottom lines that I found engaging:

1. China's government is a screwed up bureaucracy with petty egos just like ours.

2. China produced moderate pragmatist Premier Zhao Ziyang, promoted him, and empowered him.

With all due respect to all those wailing and moaning about the years of house arrest, this book is phenomenal for documenting the above two points alone, and Premier Zhao Ziyang will stand in history as one of the greatest leaders along with Mao Zedong (their rendition, I always preferred Mao Tse-tung) and Deng Xiaoping.

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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2009/10/272009/10/27

Review: National Suicide: How Washington Is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Public Administration

Great Airport Book, Really Substantive

October 26, 2009

Martin L. Gross

The publisher has failed to use the tools that Amazon provides, so “Look Inside the Book” and especially the Table of Contents, are not available. Shame on the publisher. I would normally take away one star for this lack of due diligence.

This author and the books this author provides are serious investigative journalism and great reporting. Below are just five of his eleven previous books, all non-fiction, all blowing the whistle in detail.
The Government Racket 2000: All New Washington Waste from A to Z
Political Racket
Tax Racket
Medical Racket
The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools

Although the author certainly has a formula, I do not consider these formula books or light in any sense of the word. The author's introduction is a proper overview of all that follows, and the conclusion connects the dots.

I am not going to list the 44 alphabetical topics here, from Alasakan Oil to Zip Codes–the publisher really needs to do their duty to the reader and the author and get Inside the Book details posted.

I am hugely impressed by the details in this book, and its over all coherence. If the public ever wanted a czar for both structural and financial reform of the federal government which is, as Ron Paul, the author, and I and manz others agree, totally broken, this author is the man for the job.

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