Category: Misinformation & Propaganda

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Review (Guest): Program or be Programmed–Ten Commands for a Digital Age

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Douglas Rushkoff

Table of Contents

I. TIME  Do Not Be “Always On”
II. PLACE  Live in Person
III. CHOICE  You May Always Choose “None of the Above”
IV. COMPLEXITY  You Are Never Completely Right
V. SCALE  One Size Does Not Fit All
VI. IDENTITY  Be Yourself
VII. SOCIAL  Do Not Sell Your Friends
VIII. FACT  Tell the Truth
IX. OPENNESS Share, Don’t Steal
X. PURPOSE Program or Be Programmed

5.0 out of 5 stars Re-Humanizing Our Future

December 29, 2010

Brent Finnegan (Harrisonburg, VA, US) – See all my reviews

I haven't read Rushkoff's other books (although I might go back and read Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back).

Program or be Programmed is a quick read. I read it on the Kindle my wife got me for Christmas. The irony of reading a book about the pitfalls and possibilities of technology we don't fully understand on a device I don't fully understand was not lost on me.

I would describe this as an “Internet philosophy book” that might fit on the bookshelf somewhere between Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning…was the Command Line and Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do? But I found Program to be even more thoughtful and succinct than those books.

Quote from the book: “Instead of learning about our technology, we opt for a world in which our technology learns about us.”

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Review: Prophets of War–Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, War & Face of Battle
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William Hartung

4.0 out of 5 stars Final Review: Boring, Limited, Not for General Audience

January 3, 2011

After reading this book, which I found to be extremely boring, I have to give Pierre Sprey very high marks for his substantive contributions to the C-SPAN Book interview of the author. My summary of that interview is therefore an important part of my summary of this book. It can be seen at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog by searching for the two names Pierre Sprey William Hartung without quotes or brackets.

I reduce the book to four from five stars because it is a lazy book–no charts, no maps, just a blast of names and dates and numbers–VERY boring. However righteous, this book could have been much better.

Comments:

+ 29B per year in revenue from the Pentagon, probably is low number, is not that much.

+ Lockheed grossly exaggerates job numbers and refuses to back them up.

+ Lockheed wins with low bids and the Pentagon acquisition folks are so inept or politically influenced they accept that.

+ Lockheed is the poster child for a broken acquisition system–quite right–that does not make them the bad guys.

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Review (Guest): Web of Debt–The Shocking Truth About Our Money System

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Commercial), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation
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Ellen Hodgson Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars Follow the Yellow Brick Road… to comprehend a financial system on the brink of collapse

September 16, 2007

By GK (Bay Area, CA) – See all my reviews

I have been researching this topic myself for four or five years now and am familiar with almost every other book in this genre, and I can unequivocally say that this is now the definitive work on the world's financial and banking system, the history of money and power in Western civilization, and the dire prognosis for our economy and our personal freedoms, in general, as a result. It is vastly superior to “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, to compare it to one other fine book on the subject that is now outdated, both in terms of its complete historical coverage, as well as a completely up to date perspective on recent financial history and a deeply insightful analysis of our current debt crisis, why it was let out of control, and who would benefit from its ultimate unwinding. Quite frankly, looking back four to five years from now, this could be the most profound non-fiction work of our times. Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager for the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, when speaking on the same topic as this book, stated, “It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.” I couldn't agree more, and even encourage many unintelligent persons to give it a go. The mechanics of money and finance have a profound affect on every person's life and well being, and is inextricably linked to the fabric of our society and our freedom. Yet it is almost completely ignored and poorly understood by the common man. As Henry Ford said, “It is well that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be revolution before tomorrow morning.” It's time we all started to understand what's been going on and how it will affect our immediate future.

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Review: Why Leaders Lie–The Truth About Lying in International Politics

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Communications, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Leadership, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
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John J. Mearsheimer

5.0 out of 5 stars Cornerstone, Not the Whole Building

January 2, 2011

By no stretch should this book be dismissed as a three. While I might normally have gone with a four, I am settling on five for balance and because the author not only covers an extraordinarily important topic in a sensible measured way, but his endnotes are another book all by themselves–I recommend all readers start there.

Where the author falls short is in lacking a strategic analytic construct for measuring the true costs of lying in blood, treasure, and spirit. He tends to ascribe pure motives to leaders (for example, not at all confronting the raw fact that Dick Cheney committed 23 documented impeachable acts (see my review of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency for the itemization) and Dick Cheney also led the telling of 935 documented lies best covered by TruthDig but also in Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq.

The book disconnects grand strategy (global engagement) from domestic prosperity in a manner I find disconcerting, and while the author is most able in documenting the costs to a democracy of lies to the public, I do not see nor feel the deeper reality: lies destroy the Commonwealth. Lies allow a two-party tyranny to sell out to the Arabs (not just the Israelis), to Wall Street–lies permit the mortgage clearinghouse fraud, the derivatives fraud, and the Federal Reserve fraud on the one hand, while also fooling the public into a national security policy that is clinically insane, catastrophically costly, and ultimately a self-inflicted wound that could be fatal.
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Review: Cyberpower and National Security

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
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Franklin D. Kramer (Editor), Stuart H. Starr (Editor), Larry Wentz (Editor)

5.0 out of 5 starsRead Macgregor & Steele for the Other Half

January 1, 2011

I like the book and I like the authors and I do NOT like the fact that neither decision-support nor intelligence (decision-support) nor M4IS2* are in this book. Retired Reader's review–at five stars–is the review I would have written were I to read the book rather than just appreciate it via Look Inside the Book, and he and I have discussed the intellectual and leadership vacuum we all have in cyberspace where most simply have no idea what they are doing.

* Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2)

I must defer to Retired Reader and Bob Gourley on the good of this book, and hence five stars from em as well. However, and with proper regard for the the vastly experienced and well-intentioned authors, it troubles me that they do not include core concepts and context such as were developed by Robert Garigue, who died at the age of 55 before being able to produce his master work. His Preface to my third book, Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time and a couple of his briefings that I have featured at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, are all that we have to remember his towering genius. As with all my books, all free online.

Here is Robert Garigue's bottom line: cyber-power–and cyber-security and what some would call today cyber-command (actually an oxymoron) are about TRUTH & TRUST. All this stuff about protecting legacy systems that are 90% rubbish or interdicting and interfering with the 10% of our enemies that have sophisticated system, is out of touch with reality. The Chinese have whipped our butts on both stealth and riding electrical circuits into NSA's computers and they did it because we pretend that spending money on contractor vapor-ware (SAIC's Trailblazer comes to mind) is somehow equivalent to being competent at something useful.

This brings me to the bottom line: cyber-power does not exist in a vacuum. It is, like a weapon, an extention of the humans that it serves or empowers. Right now US cyber-power is–to the extent it is even relevant or effective–being managed by gerbils (Madeline Albright's term, not mine) for utterly unsound and intellectually as well as morally bankrupt ends–and it is not doing a single thing to help infantry squads see over the next hill, survive improvised explosive devices that still cannot be detected (on behalf of the Marine Corps, my #1 requirement for MASINT in 1988 after seeing the wood-encased IED's in El Salvador in 1979-1980) and on and on.

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Review (Guest): The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity
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Robert Scheer

5.0 out of 5 stars The great American Stickup

September 8, 2010

In this book, “deregulation” is a four-letter word: a synonym for leaving the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. markets and the U.S. reputation wide open to greedy mindless homegrown plutocrats. In short, it is a synonym for leaving the nation vulnerable to conscienceless unpatriotic Wall Street thieves.

Here in easy to understand language, Robert Scheer has pealed back the layers that cover up the whole stinking mess that has become “stripped-down vulnerable deregulated America.” The method of robbery is basically a five-step political process: (1) “demagog” FDR and all existing regulations relentlessly as the enemy of free enterprise; (2) use paid lobbyist to help justify, tear-down and then rewrite new regulations; (3) use lobbyists' contributions to buy off the votes of key politicians in both parties to open up the laws for the impending thievery; (4) once legislation is passed, oversee the Wall Street financial casino with watchdogs that do not watch; and then (5) appoint members of the plutocracy who stand to gain the most, as facilitators and the palace guards of policy.

The present system of “high-level state sanctioned grand larceny” was designed and implemented, not by Ronald Reagan, or GW Bush, but by William Jefferson Clinton with the help of none other than the gang of four — Timothy Geitner, Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Lawrence Summers. However, the unsung hero of the grand heist, was Windy Lee Gramm, senator Phil Gramm's paramour and then wife, (who as a grad student was first his lover and then very quickly his wife). It was this “devious duo” that engineered the plans for the ultimate robbery of the American economic system.

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Review (Guest): Failure of Intelligence–The Decline and Fall of the CIA

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
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Mel Goodman

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Love for CIA, March 6, 2008<

Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

This is an astonishingly well balanced book that while deeply critical of CIA and its senior management also credits its strengths and successes. The author, Melvin Goodman, spent some 34 years as an analyst within the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of CIA. His principal criticism is that CIA directors in collusion with the executive branch have routinely politicized not merely intelligence products, but the very processes of research and analysis basic to intelligence production. He further argues that most intelligence `failures' can be traced to the practice of far too many at CIA to distort the intelligence process to support policy decisions and even to suppress sound, contrary intelligence. He also sees the growing `militarization' of the U.S. Intelligence System as further evidence that the Intelligence Community (IC) is moving from producing objective and accurate intelligence to producing intelligence that supports the ideologies and prejudices of its masters.

Goodman supports his argument with a remarkably detailed chronicle of CIA intelligence production over the last 35 years. This chronology emphasizes those instances where political pressure and the need to support a particular point of view took precedence over the need to produce accurate intelligence. Also, although he doesn't say so directly, he demonstrates the truth that intelligence is only as good as the system it serves. Unlike so many books on intelligence, this book actually identifies both the good guys and the bad .guys of CIA over the years. In particular he has a fascinating analysis of CIA Directors from Bill Casey (1980-1986) onward that is quite devastating. Although his principal target is the deleterious effect of the politicization and militarization of intelligence, he also effectively criticizes CIA's analytic and clandestine tradecraft.

This is an absolutely important critique of the course of CIA and by extension the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. However, given the controversial claims made by Goodman and the fact he actually names his heroes and villains, the reader might ask does he really know what he is talking about? In this reviewer's opinion, the answer is yes he does. Having been personally involved in a number of specific intelligence events that he chronicles, this reviewer would argue that Goodman has accurately described them. This is a book that ought to guide any effort to reform the U.S. Intelligence System.

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