Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 303 – Public Intelligence Blog

Immoral Capitalism Is Costing Us the Republic….,

February 27, 2005

John Perkins

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to reduce links to ten.

This book should be read simultaneously with two others books: David Callahan's The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead and also William Greider's, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy.

The alter ego of this book, in this case from Latin America, is Alvaro Vargas Llosa's “Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression (Independent Studies in Political Economy) As populism sweeps across Latin America, and Western corporations are expelled, as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela works to extend European concepts of Social Democracy and egalitarian distribution of wealth, this book (“Confessions”) can be said to be the equivalent of Martin Luther's posting to the cathedral door–it outlines all the reasons why Americans–US citizens–must heal themselves and retake control over their own economy, ceasing the transfer of its plagues to others.

At root, this book is about what we teach in our schools and practice in our daily lives: values, or a lack there-of. Together with other related books, such as Clyde Prestowitz' Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions this book makes crystal clear the fact that we have abandoned our original morality and focus on a Republic offering hope to all mankind, and instead created an Empire, by, of, and for the 1% of the American population that is now in super-sized wealthy elite status.

Most upper middle class and wealthy elite Americans will be made uncomfortable by this book. Having been educated by largely marginal educational systems where cheating is tolerated and rote learning pays lip service to the concept of developing independent intellects, most will find this book shocking to the point of wondering if it is false. Instead, I would join the author in suggesting that it is we who are living the lie, we who have lost faith with our Founding Fathers.

According to the author, there is a clear and present danger to all Americans, and to the rest of the world, of continuing a system of “off the books” national security practices which revolve around “independent” corporate activities that seek to subvert and impoverish Third World nations for the enrichment of a narrow elite in America, and a narrower elite within each of the countries being targeted.

One cannot help but be impressed by the commonality of themes between this author, and the fatwa's of Bin Laden and the charismatic populism of Hugo Chavez. Indeed, the author goes so far as to suggest, obliquely but clearly, that Bin Laden and others who oppose US multinational imperialism are closer to the spirit of Tom Paine than those who claim to represent America. Reading Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency and Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It I must agree.

What I see, having specialized in predicting revolutions many years ago, is that we have reached a tipping point. The author treats 9-11 as his own tipping point, an event that caused him to overcome a vow of silence and bring forth his story for public consumption. On a larger scale, what I see, both at home, where cheating is epidemic across all the professions and in all walks of life, and abroad, where legalized looting of countries takes place in the guide of “free trade” rather than “fair trade,” is an impending spontaneous combustion of populations and economies.

Three side notes:

First, the author highlights the role of the Department of Treasury as a national security and foreign affairs actor. Those who have read Sterling and Peggy Seagrave's Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold will have an easier time understanding how Treasury might maintain “off the books” national security funds that can be used to corrupt foreigners and fund covert action campaigns so secret even the CIA is not privy to them-truly a form of White House influence that needs to be better understood.

Second, the author underscores how little Americans actually know about what is going on overseas, in part because the capital city newspapers overseas, the mainstay of what the US government and US media read, ignore the provincial papers, and in part because we have no truly independent objective Open Source (Information Agency that can collect and integrate “ground truth” on behalf of the public. His depiction of the differing perspectives in Latin America-those we call terrorists consider themselves patriots fighting immoral actions to dam rivers and destroy forests as well as entire tribes-is provocative.

Third and finally, the author illuminates the unholy alliance between corporations intend on taking over foreign territory with unexploited gold, oil, or other riches, and certain religious organizations, chief among them the mis-named Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), that use a variety of dirty tricks, including laxative-laden food gifts and duplicitous “land grabbing” techniques, to move tribes away from the riches and to obtain land grants under false pretenses.

As China and India woo Latin America, along with Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, I anticipate a clear and present danger to America: our immoral carpet-bagging is setting the stage for us to be thrown out of the region, with consequences for our economy that are staggering. Morality does matter. This book drives a stake into the heart of the devil we have allowed to dominate our global relations, to pillage and loot “in our name.”

Published since this was reviewed:
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
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy

2005/02/272009/12/04

Review: The Cheating Culture–Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Ethics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Philosophy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Gets Right to the Point: Cheating Destroys the Commonwealth,

February 27, 2005

David Callahan

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

I recommend that this book be read together with John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and William Greider's, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. As a pre-amble, I would note that a Nobel Prize was given in the late 1990's to a man that demonstrates that trust lowers the cost of doing business. Morality matters–immorality imposes a pervasive sustained, insidious, long-term, and ultimately fatal cost on any community, any Republic, and that is the core message of this book that most reviewers seem to be missing.

Any student of national security can tell you that one of the most important sources of national power is the population, followed by the economy, natural resources, and then the more traditional sources of national power: diplomacy, military, law enforcement, and government policies generally.

What this author makes clear is that our population has become a cheating population, one that cheats in school, cheats their employer, and cheats their clients (lawyers, accountants, doctors, all cheating). Such a population is literally undermining national security by creating false values, and undermining true values. Some simple examples: an estimated $250 Billion a year in individual tax avoidance; an estimated $600 Billion a year in theft from employers; an estimated $250 Billion a year in legalized corporate tax avoidance and investor fraud; and an additional $250 Billion a year in legalized theft form the individual taxpayers through Congressional support for unnecessary and ill-advised “subsidies” for agriculture, fishing, and forestry, as well as waivers of environmental standards that ultimately result in long-term external diseconomies…

At root, the author observes that pervasive cheating ensues from the perception by the majority that “everyone does it” and that the rules are not being enforced–that “the system” lacks legitimacy. In other countries, illegitimacy might lead to revolution, a revolt of the masses. In the USA, still a very rich country, the poor are cheating on the margins while the rich are looting the country, and we are not yet at a “tipping point” such as a new Great Depression might inspire.

This is a thoughtful book, and it does not deserve the negative comments from those whom the book most likely is describing all too well. Cheating diminishes trust and reduces value. America has become corrupt across all the professions, within Congress, within the media, within the political level of government (the civil service remains a bastion of propriety).

What price freedom? What price the Republic? You may or may not choose to agree with this author's diagnosis and prescription, but in my view, he gets to the heart of the matter. It's about integrity. We've lost it.

2005/02/182009/12/04

Review: Collapse–How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

4 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe

Not the Best, Does Offer Some Contributions,

February 18, 2005

Jared Diamond

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

The book does not live up to the title, and one wonders if the book was inspired by the edited work Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series) whose basic point is that disasters turn into catastrophe when societies fail to plan and adjust.

On balance, I do not recommend the book to anyone that reads widely, and especially in the ecological economics literature from Herman Daly back through E.O. Wilson The Future of Life, Martin Rees OUR FINAL HOUR: A Scientist's warning : How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century–On Earth and Beyond, J. F. Rischard High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, or the more obvious Club of Rome and that Brown guy. Indeed, for the general audience, J. F. Rischard remains the best overview and the best value.

Having said that, I do not discourage the purchase and absorption of this book. Much of it can be skipped through if you have read other books that do a better job on any individual item (to his credit, the author provides an excellent bibliographic review in his expanded notes section). It is largely a kludge of the ideas and investigations of many others, but does–and this is why it gets four stars from me–pull together in one place, in a very interesting manner, a broad variety of investigations and conclusions.

Here are the highlights that I found worthy of reflection:

1) Gives useful emphasis to the word “ecocide” while bringing forward excellent reviews of how “creeping normalcy” and “landscape amnesia” can undermine any perception of danger or urgency.

2) Summarizes, but not as elegantly as J. F. Rischard, 12 problems and a 5-point framework of contributing factors.

3) Focuses on big business as the core player that must reform, but also emphasizes that big business will not reform until the public lives up to its responsibility for changing the rules of the game and making green business profitable.

4) Provides an impressive, nuanced, and helpful view of China and non-traditional threats coming out of China, including invasive plant and animal species, and noxious gases leaving China with the winds.

5) Alarms regarding Australia, the English-speaking outpost in Asia, which appears much more fragile and vulnerable to collapse than generally appreciated.

6) Explores the destructive nature of religious values that cause deforestation or over-population or other ills that impact on the commons.

7) Bluntly relates environmental instability to political instability. Max Manwaring does it better in his edited work “Environmental Security,” but for the general audience, these few pages are important.

8) Provides a concise and helpful thrashing of the 12 or so most common objections to being prudent about our environment.

Deep inside this book, and finally summarized by the author, is a focus on the failure of decision making at all levels of society. A failure to anticipate, a failure to perceive, a failure to attempt remediation, or even if attempted, a failure to achieve remediation, are all failures of each group and its leadership.

The author ends thoughtfully by noting that resolution of our imbalances will come one way or the other. The only choice we have is between peaceful planned sustainable changes, and catastrophic imposed “natural” corrections through war, famine, pestilence, and genocide.

I am very glad to have purchased this book, and would note that it did not make the cut via online browsing, but when examined in an airport bookstore, was found, once in hand and on direct inspection, to be worth the price of purchase and the time to absorb.

Edit of 20 Dec 07. In a larger s trategic context, what I do not see in this book is an emphasis on strategic culture or getting a grip on global reality. The USA has been living on the backs of everyone else, and only now is it starting to sink in that we are part of an The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People where everyone is is accutely conscious of The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World and our The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project).

The USA is today (20 Dec 07) a “failed state,” and while it is not officially classified as one, it is relevant to note that in 2007 there are 177 failed states, up from 75 in 2005. Bush-Cheney have been terrible to America, and to the rest of the world. Absent a miraculous turning out of a true majority in 2008, America is headed for a depression.

2005/02/122009/12/04

Review: Wastrels of Defense–How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security

4 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Military & Pentagon Power

Helpful Reading, More Opinion than Research,

February 12, 2005

Winslow T. Wheeler

Edit of 10 Oct 08 to add comment pointing to author's really excellent and detailed summary of what is wrong with Pentagon today (including budget data), and more links.

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

What the author does in this book is focus on the failings of Congress. What the author does not do is provide a more documented analysis of why and how Congress has become disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent, or why the Executive does not balance Congress when the latter abuse their powers. The “balance of power” is in fact a “balance of pork privileges,” and it is this inability, as the author describes it, to focus on all the facts, in an objective way, in order to make the best application of the taxpayer dollar, that cripples Congress (and the Executive).

I've given the author four stars because I disagree with those who would demean his motives. What I read here is consistent with the other books I have read–and my own experience talking to generally witless under-educated staff (because I am not important enough to get to the few who are “top notch”). When the author open his book by pointing out that ***all*** watchdog or balancing elements–the media, the think tanks–have failed to hold Congress accountable, I must agree with him.

The most interesting “thread” within the book has to do with information–what information gets where, who sees it, what do they do with it. At the end, the author concludes, most Members are not doing their homework, and most staffs are too busy focused on inserting partisan advantage and localized pork to actually serve the people of the United States in an effective manner.

The book is unusual in being focused on national security and defense, where the author spent his entire career, and what jumped out at me is that Congress has no grand strategy–Congress, like the Executive, is fragmented into stovepipes and is not able to make thoughtful trade-offs at the big picture level between Diplomacy Information Military Economic (DIME) instruments of national power.

The author is severely critical, and rightly so, I believe, in lambasting the Members for abdicating their Constitutional power to declare war. On page 221 he says that it is clear that Members consider their re-election prospects more important than the need to stand tall and oppose a war they do not support.

The author ends by proposing 12 steps for Congressional reform, among the most important of which is exposure of the truth to the public: no more Congressional Record “revisions,” no more secret back-room meetings, no more fake camera shots showing Senators speaking to an empty room; no more lightweight partisan staff shuttling to jobs in the Executive they are supposed to help oversee; no more stone-walling of the press; and no more lobbyists with direct access–only constituents. These are all common sense suggestions that are helpful to the public interest.

The author's last two sentences of the book are most helpful of all: “There is really only one thing that will force members of Congress to perform as best as they are able. That is for the public to have the information to distinguish the good from the bad and the phonies from the sincere.”

Public information in the public interest…this is the key.

New Links 10 Oct 08:
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
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)
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

2005/02/122009/12/04

Review: The Sling and the Stone–On War in the 21st Century

4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution

Overall Excellent Primer,

February 12, 2005

Colonel Thomas X. Hammes USMC

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

In the context of the thousands of book on strategy, force structure, emerging threats, and so on, this is a solid primer and excellent work for both those who know nothing of the many other books, and a good place to start for conventional military minds ready to think more deeply about transformation.

This is an excellent book over-all. His two key points are clear: 4th Generation Wars take decades, not months as the Pentagon likes to fight; and only 4th Generation Wars have defeated super-powers–the US losing three times, Russia in Afghanistan, France in Viet-Nam, etc.

The author offers solid critiques of the Pentagon's mediocre strategy (Joint Vision 20XX) and its preference for technology over people, an excellent short list of key players in world affairs, interesting lists and a discussion of insurgent versus coalition force strengths and weaknesses in Iraq, and a brutal–positively brutal–comparison of the pathetic performance of “secret” imagery taking days or weeks to order up, versus, “good enough” commercial imagery that can be gotten in hours.

There are flashes of brilliance that suggest that the author's next book will be just as good if not better. He understands the war of ideas and talks about insurgent handbills as a form of ammunition that the US is not seeing, reading, or understanding; he points out that Al Qaeda is like a venture capitalist, franchising and subsidizing or inspiring distributed terrorism; and he is superbly on target, on page 39, when he points out that when Al Qaeda attacks in the US, the only thing that is “moving” is information or knowledge. Everything else they pick up locally–hence, US homeland security comes down to intercepting the information, not the players or the things they use to attack us.

The author is among those who feel that we must nail Egypt, Syria, and Iran, among others (I would include Pakistan), for exporting support to terrorism.

I have a number of underlinings and margin comments throughout this book, so it is by no means a light read. It is a very fine place to start understanding war in the 21st Century, and an excellent foundation for reading the more nuanced and broader works of GI Wilson, Max Manwaring, Steve Metz, Ralph Peters, and others.

Other seminal works in this area, with reviews:
Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (International and Security Affairs Series)
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
The Tiger's Way: A U.S. Private's Best Chance for Survival
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare
Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century

2005/02/122009/12/04

Review: Transformation Under Fire–Revolutionizing How America Fights

4 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Military & Pentagon Power

On target & useful–a master speaks,

February 12, 2005

Douglas A. Macgregor

I hold this author to a higher standard, for he is in the top rank of perhaps 10 people who really know what they are talking about with respect to transformation. I believe he is the single most important mind behind the Army's recent transition from 10 divisions to 40+ brigades as the basic form of organization. Where he falls short (and remember, this is a master who in falling short is still light years ahead of the others) is in not going far enough: in not carrying his ideas out to inter-agency collaboration and multi-national inter-agency planning and coalition operations.

He also fails to properly put the failings of the US Navy and the US Air Force in context. The US Navy today is a disgrace, largely incapable of moving anything or getting anywhere at flank speed, and the US Air Force is even worse off–incapable of lifting what needs to be lifted, when it needs to be lifted, in the distances and quantities that need to be lifted. Without a chapter on this joint “sucking chest wound,” the author's otherwise brilliant work loses much of its potential at the SecDef level.

This is a very serious book, not an essay. It is packed with substantive information, it is well-documented, and the footnotes are as useful as the main text.

The underlying theme in this book is that the Chief of Staff of the Army will not succeed until he breaks the back of the cultural mafia that persists–like the horse cavalry of old–in focusing on big units and expensive platforms. While the author is among the foremost and earliest proponents of small, fast, and many, it is clear to me that he does not consider the current Army to be moving in the right direction–a direction that he makes clear could lead to our achieving a sufficiency within months rather than years.

Perhaps the most revolutionary underlying theme in this book is that of how to deal with information. The author may well be the most intelligent helpful commentator I have read in this respect. On page 102 he focuses on the fact that “Command centers where information is collected and transmitted should not be information monopolies,” and he focuses throughout on the urgent need to use “commander's intent” (a concept of operations pioneered by Marine Corps Commandant Al Gray) and fluid lateral information sharing to increase situational awareness and agility at the tactical level.

Published in 2004 and not doubt polished in 2003, this book gives the US Army a failing grade for the future while noting that it could–with application and innovation, get back to the Honor Roll within months, rather than years.

I am a Marine and I discount the “hate and discontent” from disgruntled Marines writing reviews against this book. There is a big difference between Marines from the sea carrying out largely amphibious missions, and soldiers (and increasingly in today's army, contractors at a ratio of 1:1) in for the long haul. We need a 450 ship Navy, a 2 Berlin Airlift Air Force, a 45+ brigade Army, a 3 MEF USMC, a doubled Coast Guard, a tripled State Department, and a whole new focus on inter-agency and multinational armies and related peacekeeping cadres. It is not enough to fix Army–we need a grand strategy for using all of the instruments of national power over a 100 year timeframe. In this context, the book gets an A for giving Army the slap in the face it needs right now, and a C+ for missing the larger picture within which the Army, no matter how transformed, will fail because everything else in the USG is failing when it comes to coordinated sustainable inter-agency operations. Theater commanders and Army ground forces cannot win the war alone, nor can they make peace on their own.

One final word of praise: the author is an honorable man of great moral courage who speaks his mind in the public interest. Within the book he has harsh things to say about ticket-punching careerist officers, and think tank harlots who give their masters what they want, not what they need to hear. I salute and will follow any man such as this. We need more like him.

2005/02/122009/12/04

Review: The Trail of Painted Ponies, Collectors Edition

4 Star, Culture, DVD - Light

Delightful Overview of the Collection and How It Came To Be,

February 12, 2005

Rod Barker

I bought this book in paperback at the same time that I bought four horses from a store and then–using the book as a guide–ordered two more from the web site.

It tells a great story and is a pleasure to have.

My only complaint is that the book focuses on telling a story with larger photos of a very small number of the horses, and then gives each of the **many** other horses in the collection nothing more than a thumbnail, literally (twelve 1.5 inch bu 1.5 inch tiny tiny tiny photos).

I would strongly encourage the sponsors to do a new edition that gives a quarter page to each horse, and also specifies the material that the horse is made of–I find the ceramic glaze horses generally disappointing.

Category: Reviews (Books & DVD)

Review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Review: The Cheating Culture–Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead

Review: Collapse–How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Review: Wastrels of Defense–How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security

Review: The Sling and the Stone–On War in the 21st Century

Review: Transformation Under Fire–Revolutionizing How America Fights

Review: The Trail of Painted Ponies, Collectors Edition