Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 293 – Public Intelligence Blog

2005/10/242009/12/04

Review: The Long Emergency–Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover)

4 Star, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Fuel Drop + Climate Change + Disease + Water Drop = Great Depression. ,

October 24, 2005

James Howard Kunstler

This is a brilliant piece of work, indeed so compelling that after glancing at it over morning coffee I set aside a work day and simply read the book. I take away one star because there is no index, no bibliography, and the author is very poor about crediting his sources. On page 163, for example, his observations about 300 Chinese cities being water-stressed, and about the Aral Sea disappearing, appear to have come directly from Marq de Villier's superb book on Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource but without attribution. This should have been footnoted.

Having said that, I consider the book itself, despite its run-on Op-Ed character, to be a tour de force that is very logically put forward. Indeed, although I have seen allusions elsewhere, this is the first place that I have seen such a thorough denunciation of how cheap oil underlies everything else including suburbia and Wal-Mart cf. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. I am also quite impressed by the author's logical discourse on how communities have sacrificed their future coherence and sustainability for the sake of a few dollars savings on Wal-Mart products.

There is a great deal in the book that is covered more ably and in more detail by the other 600+ books I have reviewed at Amazon, and indeed, replicates much of what I write about in The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption but, I have to say, with a different twist that I admire very much.

I find the author's exploration of how cheap fuel led to wasted water, helping create cities and mega-agricultural endeavors that reduced our water at the same time that we consumed centuries worth of unrenewable fossil fuel, quite alarming.

I sum the book up on page 180 by writing in the bottom margin: “Fuel Drop + Climate Change + Disease + Water Drop = Great Depression.”

I disagree with those that consider the book excessively alarmist, and agree with those that find fault with the author's documentation. An index and an annotated bibliography would have doubled the value of this book. The author is clearly well read, logical, and articulate–an unkind person would say that he has also been lazy in not substantiating his arguments with what intelligence readers value most: an index and a good bibliography that respects the contributions of others to the argument.

The author in passing makes a good argument against our current educational system, and I for one believe that we need to get back to a system of life-long education accompanied by early apprenticeship and real-world employment and grounding for our young people. What passes for education today is actually child care, and the smartest young people, like my teen-ager, consider it to be nothing more than a prison.

On balance, a solid 4, a solid buy, and worth its weight in gold if you act on his advice and begin planning an exit strategy from those places likely to run out of water, fuel, and transport options in the next 20 years.

2005/10/232009/12/04

Review: My FBI–Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror (Hardcover)

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs

5 for Khobar, 3 for Omissions or Misdirection, 4 on Balance,

October 23, 2005

Louis J. Freeh

This book needs to be taken with a heavy dose of salts, for there are portions that are misleading. I refer particularly to the statements with respect to computing power. What the author does not tell us is that Congress *did* give the FBI a ton of money for computer upgrades, but he allowed his Assistant Directors to steal most of it for other projects, and then failed miserably in contracts management with beltway bandits who knew they would not be held accountable for failure. Freeh also avoids telling us that during most of his tenure, and up until very recently (this is less his personal problem than an inherent pathology in the FBI culture) more intelligence people QUIT every month than could be hired. The FBI environments are not well-suited for objective intelligence analysis or counter-intelligence, and certainly not for counter-terrorism either.

The books gets four stars over-all because of one exceptional aspect: the authoritative account of what we knew about the Iranian responsibility for Khobar Towers, when we knew it, when the President (Clinton) knew it, and when Lake and the others knew it. For this alone Clinton, Albright, and Lake, in particular, should be held accountable, for that specific attack on U.S. soldiers was the opening shot in the Iranian covert war against the United States. The Clinton team chose to focus on Saudi contributions to the Clinton library rather than defending America, setting the stage for equal dereliction of duty by the Bush team.

Freeh's book does earn four stars from me, and merits special recognition as a small part of the mosaic of truth that is emerging long after the 9-11 cover-ups and the complete refusal of Washington stake-holders to acknowledge any of the recommendations of either the Aspin-Brown Commission or the 9-11 Commission or the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. In the former case (Aspin-Brown) legitimate and heavy recommendations were made and ignored. In the latter cases, the recommended reforms are lipstick on the pig. Nothing has changed, we will get hit again.

I recommend that Freeh's book be read together with Stansfield Turner's very new publication, “BURN BEFORE READING,” because the two together persuade me that intelligence, like Justice, needs a Supreme Court and leaders appointed for life that are beyond the manipulative powers of the White House or the pork barrel politics of Congress. The Bush White House, like the Clinton White House, but for different reasons, chose to betray all Americans and ignore the clear and present danger of the Iranian attacks on the U.S., the Saudi support for global radicalization of Islam, and the Pakistani nuclear program. Today, Hamas and Hezbollah–creatures of the Iranians–not Al Qaeda–are the greatest threats to the destabilization of South Asia, Latin America, and portions of Africa, and despite the heroic efforts of the Special Operations community, it is not possible for them to be successful in the absence of honest adult leadership in Washington that demands a 24/7 full court press from ALL the instruments of national power.

2005/10/232009/12/04

Review: Fog Facts –Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Censorship & Denial of Access, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Operations, Information Society, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda

Makes the case for a People's Bank-Union-Intelligence Agency,

October 23, 2005

Larry Beinhart

This is quite an extraordinary book, one of five I picked up while browsing at Barnes & Noble today. It gets a full five stars for elegant writing, logical presentation, and a lovely index. I read it together with Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project) interviews, and the two complement one another.

“Fog facts” are facts that are out in the open, but “invisible” in the sense that no one acts on them. The stolen Florida election–30,000 plus disenfranchised blacks *and* “overcount” votes where Al Gore was both checked and written, rejected as invalid instead of returned for verification–the specious claims against Iraq; the 9-11 Commission apologia; the list goes on. For myself, the most interesting fog facts dealt with the number of terrorists caught and jailed by France and other nations, as a tiny fraction of the cost of invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and with little to show for it excepts casualties, including significant numbers of US amputations being concealed from the public.

The author “outs” Judith Miller as an agent of Karl Rove in the run-up to the war in Iraq, earnestly selling the Administration's line on weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps one reason she was both favored by Rove in the current Valerie Plume case, and also sought to protect Rove.

THe author gets the jump on the current scandal of the disappearing billions in Iraq–not just the billions for Halliburton in sole source contracts, but the outright theft and squandering of the $19 billion in Iraqi bank credits that Paul Bremer managed to fritter away–and they still do not have running water or electricity.

THe author quotes several times from Mein Kamph in discussing the extremist Republican use of “the big lie” and the comparisons are disconcertingly clear. He weaves a tale of draft-dodging hypocrisy among the Bush Junior and Cheney gang that is all too distasteful when combined with their corruption in favoring Halliburton–his listing of Cheney's ignominious failures as CEO of HAlliburton are fun–and also a sign that Halliburton knew what it was doing in suffering the fool that would deliver the people's treasure. His accounting of Bush Juniors many failures in business, each time living on his father's name and getting bailed out by the forgiving rich that he has repaid many times over with tax cuts and exemptions from asbestos claims, among other loopholes, is dismaying in the extreme. We “know” these things, but we do not act.

On page 82 he repeats what is now perhaps the most famous quote to come out of the Bush Junior White House, where an arrogant aide dismisses a “reality-based” person and says that the U.S. is an empire now, and makes its own reality. That the reality we are making is one of our own destruction escapes this witless aide to the President, so full of himself is he.

The books adds to my understanding of the current Social Security arrangements as a pass through system (each generation funds the next) as opposed to the Administration's proposal for privatization, which converts it to a pension fund that dies with each generation. I am persuaded that we must defend Social Security, it is present form, to the death, and that we must remove the caps and make the wealthy contribute for every dollar, not just up to $90,000.

The author concludes that there is a war today, not between civilizations, but between faith-based and reality-based communities.

I put the book down reflecting to myself that it is time for the American labor union pension funds to lead a revolution. It is time for the people to form their own bank, their own credit card company, their own intelligence agency, and their own media. Although this is happening in fits and starts with the Internet, it is disjointed. We need to marry up money, willpower, and honest information, and we need to out these carpetbaggers and regain control of the commonwealth.

Truth and morality are here to be found, but the question that remains is: will the people act? This is a very fine book for anyone who cares about future generations and resents being robbed.

Ten Other Recommended Books (Five Bad News, Five Good News):
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

2005/10/232009/12/04

Review: Imperial Ambitions–Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project) (Paperback)

4 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback

Call to arms for We the People (Intellectual Self-Defense),

October 23, 2005

Noam Chomsky

There are always gems to be found in anything that Chomsky offers (I agree with the Boston Globe's assessment of him as “America's most useful citizen”) but one can always be warned when the offering is interviews, double-spaced, over time.

In this instance, the Introduction is actually useful and I agree with David Barsamian when he describes Chomsky as an extraordinary distiller and interpreter of information, who represents all that intellectuals *should* be.

One aspect of the book that is new to Chomsky's writing is his clear and distinct appreciation for the freedom's that we enjoy in America. While we are all subject to the arbitrary declaration by the government that we are an “enemy combatant” with no rights, on balance Chomsky goes out of his way in this series of interviews to articulate his love for America and his appreciation of the privileges that attend one who is both a citizen and a tenured (now retired) professor.

As a long-time reader of Chomsky, I found some delight in his recollection of the beginnings of propaganda (in England, with the stated intent “to direct the thought of most of the world”) and I learned for the first time that Chomsky credits Walter Lippman with the phrase “manufacturing consent” that Chomsky used as the title of his most famous co-authored work.

Chomsky offers some fascinating geopolitical insights with his suggestion that the Trans-Siberian Railway might be extended to run down through North Korean into South Korea, and his views that ASEAN plus 3 (China, Korea, Japan) might rise to super-power status. I am especially taken with his view that China might be the power that saves America from itself, orchestrating a balance of power and sanity arrangement from that side of the world.

Chomsky returns to a familiar theme in this book, that of war crimes and the US being a very guilty party, but for the first time, I see Chomsky forgiving of the soldiers on the front lines, and even of their general officers, and placing all of the blame on the civilians that direct the military from the White House and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This is new. I fully expect Americans to be brought up on war crime charges in the next ten years, and I expect the American public to support this when the evidence is presented in graphic terms.

Chomsky also returns to his theme of the US harboring terrorists and hence not being able to claim the high ground against other nations. I was impressed by how the Cubans gathered evidence on the Florida-based assassins and violators of US law, and how elegantly the Cubans presented this evidence to the FBI. I was dismayed but not surprised to find the FBI arresting the Cuban infiltrators rather than the assasins–this is the same FBI that has convicted fewer than five actual terrorists, each with an average jail sentence of 14 days, from thousands of arrests. So much for intelligent effective federal investigations.

The book concludes with a fascinating discussion of “intellectual self-defense” that is a call to arms for every intelligent American (we need to be concerned–that may only be about one fifth of us).

This is something of a quickie book, not at all as substantive as Chomsky's usual works, but with many gems never-the-less. Certainly worth buying and reading.

2005/10/202009/12/04

Review: Influence–Science and Practice (4th Edition) (Paperback)

5 Star, Information Operations

US-Oriented, Excellent Starting Point, Six Key Methods,

October 20, 2005

Robert B. Cialdini

I disagree with the complaints about this being a repeat of earlier versions. “4th Edition” is quite clear. This is an updated easy to read version of a highly-regarded seminal work whose value has been proven over time.

While intended for students of psychology and for practitioners of the black art of marketing (selling over-priced unnecessary “stuff” to the unwitting), I regard this text as a very helpful reference for the new warriors, the practitoners of Information Operations and within that larger discipline, Strategic Communication & Public Diplomacy.

The six “principles” of influence, reciprocation, consistency, social proof (e.g. canned laughter), liking, authority, and scarcity, each receive their own chapter with annedotes and study questions.

Most interesting to me would be an international variation of this book, one that discussed the nuances of influence in other cultures, inclusive of family ties and prevalent sterotypes.

This book is applicable to business, evangelism, foreign affairs, defense, homeland security, and just about any field where interaction with humans is called for, and the mission demands the elicitation of collaborative behavior from others.

Good index, notes, and illustrations. Well-presented.

2005/10/202009/12/04

Review: A Whole New Mind–Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age (Hardcover)

4 Star, Information Society

Simplistic but Useful Guide to Global Dialog,

October 20, 2005

Daniel H. Pink

This book, like Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself is written for people who live in an ivory tower, a gated community, or a corporate palace. It is completely out of touch with the 90% of humanity that is comprised of the Working Poor in America, or the destitute and disenfranchised everywhere else. For that it loses one star.

However, and this is high praise from me, it is a “must read” for any knowledge worker, and I am particularly recommending it to the new breed of warrior in the U.S. Government, the Information Operations specialist. A **major** part of our government's failure at foreign policy and national security–including its failure at homeland security and its mis-steps in the global war on terror, going back to the Viet-Nam era, can be traced to a combination of excessive reliance on “metrics” (remember the “body counts?”) diluted by ideological preferences absent historical or cultural contexts.

This book, while simplistic, is a superb over-view of the alternative methods of **perception**, integration, understanding, and outreach–empathy and strategic communication to others in terms they can “receive,” and for that reason I consider it a “must read.”

The six senses, design, story-telling (see Steve Dunning), symphony, Empathy (none to be found in this White House), Play (intertwing work and play, mixing it up to energize both), and Meaning, are well covered by this book, and in a way that makes sense, where the value of listening is clear to the reader.

It is a well-put-together book, with the right amount of white space, good illustrations, good notes and recommended readings, and over-all a pleasant and instructive contribution to my library and my reflections.

2005/10/202009/12/04

Review: Ambient Findability–What We Find Changes Who We Become (Paperback)

5 Star, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology

Wow–Core Reference for Large Scale Information Access,

October 20, 2005

Peter Morville

Wow, wow, holy cow….I am rushing to finish up a book on Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, and I am so very pleased to have gotten to this absolute gem of a book before closing out. Compared to the other 200 or so books I have reviewed–including such gems at ATTENTION, Real-Time, Early Warning, and so on, this is clearly a “top ten” read in the literature on information art & science.

Halfway through the book I was torn by a sense of anguish (the U.S. Intelligence Community and the beltway bandits that suck money out of the taxpayers pocket through them have no idea how to implement the ideas in this book) and joy (beyond Google, through Wikis and other collective intelligence endeavors facilitated by open source software, relevant findability is possible).

This is a truly gripping book that addresses what may be the most important challenge of this century in a compelling, easy to read, yet intellectually deep and elegant manner.

The author is a true guru who understands that in the age of a mega-information-explosion (not just in quantity, but in languages, mediums, and nuances) the creation of wealth is going to depend on information being useful, usable, desireable, findable, accessible, credible, and valuable (page 109).

Especially important in the first half of the book are the author's focus on Mooers (not to be confused with Moores) who said in 1959 that users will make do with what information they have when it becomes too inconvenient to go after better information. This is key. At the same time, he focuses on the difference between precision and recall, and provides devasting documentation of the failure of recall (1 in 5 at best) when systems scale up, as well as the diminuition of precision. Bottom line: all these beltway bandits planning exobyte and petabyte databases have absolutely no idea how to actually help the end-user find the needle in the haystack. This author does.

The book is without question “Ref A” for the content side of Information Operations. On page 61 I am just ripped out of my chair and on to my feet by the author's discussion of Marcia Bates and her focus on an integrated model of information seeking that integrates aesthetic, biological, historical, psychological, social, and “even” spiritual layers of understanding. This is bleeding edge good stuff, with nuances that secret intelligence world is not going to understand for years.

There is a solid discussion of geocoding and locationally aware devices, and I am very pleased to see the author recognize the work of four of my personal heroes, Stewart Brand, Bruce Sterling, Kevin Kelly, and Howard Rheingold.

Halfway through the book he discusses the capture of life experiences, and the real possibility that beyond today's information explosion might lie an exo-explosion of digital data coming from wired individuals feeding what they see and hear and feel into “the web”. The opportunities for psycho-social diagnosis and remediation, and cross-cultural communication, are just astounding.

The book wraps up with a great review of findability hacks, semantic tricks, and the trends to come in inspired and informed decisions. Like Tom Atlee, the author sees the day of collective intelligence enabled by the web, but I have to say, I thought I knew a lot, after reading this book I have the strongest feeling that my education has just begun.

This is one of those books that could help define an era. It is about as thoughtful, useful, and inspiring a book as I have read in the past several years. DECENT!