Review: Colleges That Change Lives–40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You’re Not a Straight-A Student (Paperback)
4 Star, Education (Universities)I have also realized that with the thousands of colleges and universities across America, including community colleges that are now going “upscale” and expanding their computer and laboratory facilties, that this book is like a placebo–it pupports to offer a life-changing experience with a very narrow selection of schools, when in fact there are plenty of life-changing schools right before our eyes, in every state of the Union.
It merits comment that this past week none of the schools in this book that we visited caught my son's attention (he is one of those who thought, until this trip, that he never wanted to go to college), but when we visited Muhlenberg College, my alma mater, not only did he perk up, but the hand of God was visible–a college educated custodian opened the locked rooms in the Arts Center, showing him the music and digital video programming rooms, and that sealed the deal.
Read this book for ideas, discard the “list” as flawed and misrepresentative and open your eyes to all the options.
Review: Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)
6 Star Top 10%, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)![rujnningan Amazon Page](http://phibetaiota.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/rujnningan.jpg)
6 Star Holy Cow! “Insider” Speaks Truth, Tars Both Parties,
July 25, 2005
Peter G. Peterson
Edit of 9 Jan 15 to elevate to 6 stars. In the context of the hundreds of books I have reviewed (see my master list easily found, Worth a Look: Democracy Lost & Found Essay, Book Review Blurbs and Links, this book stands out as one of the earliest and most thoughtful — still a classic, still relevant. SIX STARS.
Edit of 16 Apr 08 to add more links on the bad and the good.
Edit of 17 Jan 07 to add links.
UPDATED 15 Dec 07 Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial BranchesThis extraordinary book should be read in tandem with Lewis H. Lapham's Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy and perhaps also William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy as well as Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World.
I find it extraordinary to have the Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, which I have always considered to be an old man's club of established elites, largely out of touch with 80% of the real world (that is to say, the 80% that has almost nothing in the way of wealth, health, or rights), step up to the plate and speak truth.This book addresses the second core issue in America's future, i.e. the twin deficits that are not only going to kill the business of America, but also deprive the children of America of their future. (Lapham addresses the first: restoration of honest democracy). In combination, the $7 trillion deficit in federal spending, and the $500 billion a year trade deficit, with roughly $2 billion in foreign loans being required every single day to keep America afloat, both suggest that we are snorting political cocaine and every one of us is a damn fool for allowing two political parties to get away with selling us down the river.As the author points out in the Preface, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautions its own master, the USA, that it is in danger of becoming an insolvent Third World country, running up bills that “would require an immediate and permanent 60 percent hike in the federal income tax, or a 50 percent cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits,” we cannot say we have not been warned.The author is balanced, focused, deliberative, and earnest. He carefully explains how both the “mainstream” political parties have completely abdicated all responsibility, and completely betrayed the public interest in their eagerness to sell legislation to the highest corporate bidders.
There is one grievous flaw in the book. In concluding that we can only survive by educating ourselves and then finding our voice, the author neglects to address the fast means of achieving short-term fiscal recovery in tandem with campaign finance and electoral reform: the elimination of subsidies, tax fraud, and tax relief for corporations. We have close to a trillion in unwarranted and unsound subsidies to poor agricultural, fisheries, forestry, and minerals programs where every dollar in subsidy is yielding high long-term costs to the taxpayer citizen; we have over $50 billion a year in documented import-export tax fraud ($25 rocket engines going out, $3000 toothbrushes coming in–advanced money laundering and tax avoidance); finally, the corporate share of federal tax revenue has dropped from 32% to 6% in the past twenty years, with corporations like Halliburton paying $15M in taxes on billions in profit–easy to fix: pay taxes on the profit declared to the stockholders.
See also the more recently published book by John Bogle, Wall Street mutual funds giant, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, in which he singled the author of this book out for special praise. What this means is that Wall Street and the “elite” now realize, as Dean Garten from Yale tried to tell them in The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders, we are all in this together, government is hosed, labor is vital, morality and integrity are non-negotiable foundations for mutual prosperity. 2008 could be the foundation year of the 2nd American Republic.
See also (with reviews):
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
Review DVD: The Snow Walker
5 Star, Reviews (DVD Only), Survival & SustainmentI was moved by this movie, and found it to be nuanced and elegant. Not only does the pilot survive, but in doing so, he returns to the land, he returns to “the people of the land” (the Eskimos), and he overcomes the falsely-rooted prejudices of those who fall prey to the fools' gold that is found in technology, and scorn those who remain close to the land.
At all levels, this is an extraordinary movie.
Books that support this theme include Lionel Tiger's “The Manufacture of Evil,” Jean Ralston Saul, “The Dictatorship of Reason in the West,” Clifford Stoll, “Silocon Valley Snake Oil,” and Norman Cousins, “The Pathology of Power.”
Review DVD: Bride and Prejudice
5 Star, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only)I spend a lot of time thinking about both reality and perception. The US has blown it when it comes to the billions of poor–not just the Arab fundamentalists, but the non-violent individuals who see us occupying their countries and looting their natural resources. If America could produce a movie like this, one that reflected the best of America, the ideals of the original Republic, it would have more of an impact than the billions of dollars we are spending on a heavy-metal military.
This movie is extraordinary. It is brilliant. It is worth buying, viewing multiple times, and as a gift idea.
Review: Making America’s Budget Policy–From the 1980s to the 1990s (Paperback)
4 Star, Budget Process & PoliticsThe bottom line in this book is clear: America can find $500 billion more in revenue if we return corporations to paying 25% of the total revenue (down to 6% now from a high of 32% in the past), eliminate subsidies and import-export pricing fraud; if we eliminate the tax code and all of its special interest provisions, and rely instead of the marketplace to choose winners and losers; and if we shift to a flat fair tax with no deductions except the mortgage and savings not counted as income. I am over-simplifying, but this book desperate needs distillation.
The author is quite clear on the growing threat to America of the double deficit (both debt and trade),
On balance I am very impressed by the author's grasp of the nuances of budget policy, and while I do not understand all that he writes about, his book has certainly persuaded me that Bill Bradley and he have a grip on this important subject.
It would be quite exciting to see Barack Obama and Ron Paul agree to collaborate on a new coalition government that offers all Americans two things: the restoration of informed engaged democracy where every citizen has access to the information they need, and where every citizen's vote counts; and the elimination of the twin deficits as a national security and competitiveness priority.
EDIT of 20 Dec 07: Adding a few links.
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: How the Financial System Underminded Social Ideals, Damaged Trust in the Markets, Robbed Investors of Trillions – and What to Do About It
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
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War onthe American Dream and How to Fight Back
Review: Dying to Win–The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)
5 Star, America (Anti-America), Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Terrorism & Jihad, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)Of the 563 books I have reviewed–all in national security and global issues, and all but four among the best books in the field–this new work by Professor Pape stands out as startlingly original, thoughtful, useful, and directly relevant to the clear and present danger facing America: an epidemic of suicidal terrorism spawned by the “virtual colonialism” of the US in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and now Iraq as well as other countries.
I will not repeat the excellent listing of facts in the Book Description provided by the publisher–certainly that description should be read carefully. If you are a Jewish zealot, don't bother, you will not get over the cognitive dissonance. Everyone else, including Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic contributors to Congressional and Presidential campaign funds, absolutely must read this book.
There are many other books that support the author's key premises, all well-documented with case studies and the most complete and compelling statistics–known facts. I am persuaded by the author's big three:
1) Suicidal terrorism correlates best with U.S. military occupation of specific countries that tend to be undemocratic and corrupt, where the U.S. in collusion with dictators and one-party elites are frustrating legitimate national aspirations of the larger underclass and middle class;
2) Virtually all of the suicidal terrorists comes from allies of the U.S. (at least nominally–they actually play the U.S. as “useful idiots”) such as Saudi Arabia, rather than Iran;
3) The three premises shared by Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, and now the Iraqi insurgency, are all accurate and will continue to be so if the U.S. does not pull its military out of the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other locations:
a) Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and virtual colonialism everywhere else, demand martyrdom operations;
b) Conventional inferiority mandates self-sacrifice (not only suicidal terrorism, but other asymmetric attacks including the death of a thousand cuts against key energy, water, and transportation nodes in the USA; and
c) The US and its European allies are vulnerable to coercive pressure. The withdrawal of the Americans and the French from Viet-Nam and then Lebanon, of the Israelis from the West Bank, and other concessions itemized by the author, have all made the case for suicidal terrorism. It works and it will explode.
I will mention several other books to support this author, but wish to stress that alone, his work is spectacularly successful in documenting the fallacies of the U.S. national security policy.
Among the books that support him are
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
Understanding Terror Networks
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
This is a core reading for every officer at STRATCOM and SOCOM, and for anyone who wishes to be effective at either Public Diplomacy or Strategic Communication or Information Operations. This author should be an invited distinguished funded speaker at every single war college in the Western democracies. We cannot win without listening to him. Military withdrawals, combined with energy independence, are essential. Without them, we not only will not fully defeat the current crop of suicidal terrorists, but we will, in attempting to deal with the current threat with old counter-productive and heavy-handed means, give birth to hundreds of thousands in the next generation of suicidal terrorists.
There are not enough guns in the world to win this one, even if we had competent intelligence at the neighborhood level, which we do not. In keeping with the author's recommendations, it is clear that moral capitalism, informed democracy, equanimity toward bottom up movements for national liberation and an end to corruption, an honest policy process in Washington, D.C.–these are the keys to victory.
This is a towering accomplishment and a major contribution to strategic thinking.