Politics – Page 8 – Public Intelligence Blog

2015/02/252015/02/25

Review: National Insecurity – American Leadership in an Age of Fear

4 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration

David Rothkopf

4.0 out of 5 stars SUPERB Conclusion–Has Flaws But Still a Strong Contribution, February 25, 2015

Wow. I have met the author and I gave an earlier book of his, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power a strong review, but I was not expecting the deep common sense and pragmatic observations that conclude this book. There are many aspects of our insecurity that the author is not willing to address — notably the deep corruption of our political system and undue influence by foreign “allies” that are in fact enemies but that pales in light of his deep evaluation of how badly we are doing as a government. There are many flaws in the author's arguments better covered by Reviewer Frank J. Wassermann, I put this down to the author trying too hard to not completely alienate all the mandarins he still meets for lunch and at evening events. I embrace most of Reviewer Wasserman's comments but still give the book four stars instead of his two.

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2015/01/112015/01/11

Review: Beyond the Fracking Wars – A Guide for Lawyers, Public Officials, Planners, and Citizens

4 Star, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Erica Levine Powers and Beth E. Kinne (editors)

4 stars. Useful contribution badly marketed and badly priced

The authors, being from New York, know what the NYT and Mother Jones both missed in their stories on Governor Cuomo banning fracking in New York: that it was a legal couple Helen and David Slottje that went village by village educating townships that then passed anti-fracking ordnances. Search for this headline to get to the photo essay: Dryden: The Town That Changed The Fracking Game. To everyone's delight, the Appeals Court upheld those local decisions instead of doing what they usually do, yield to federal and corporate corruption. Today fracking has been banned in Quebec, many US states at various levels of governance, and world-wide (search for List of Franking Bans Worldwide) for the simple reason that it uses clean water we cannot spare, contaminates what is left of the clean water in rapidly falling aquifers, and creates earthquakes — a new CRS Report is just out, free, Human-Induced Earthquakes from Deep-Well Injection: A Brief Overview, easily found online.

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2015/01/03

Review (Guest): The American Deep State – Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on US Democracy

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Peter Dale Scott

5 Star Connecting the Dots

By The Peripatetic Reader on December 13, 2014

Peter Dale Scott has written many books about the Deep State at work in the U.S. government. Scott depicts American society as structurally and inherently schizophrenic. Just as there is the public government and the deep government, and ordinary events and deep events, there are two dominant forces permeating United States history: One egalitarian, believing in fairness, inclusion, and free expression, and the other militaristic and exclusionary, which is only interested in social control.

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2014/12/24

Review: Before the First Shots are Fired – How America Can Win or Lose Off the Battlefield

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Change & Innovation, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction

Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz

Foreign Politics Beyond the Beltway

By Andrew Lubin on September 6, 2014

Today's foreign policy world seems like the bad old days of American indecision under Jimmy Carter; the Israel-Hamas war, Putin annexed the Crimea, President Obama's red-lines in Syria are repeatedly ignored, and the Americans killed in Iraq seem to have been sacrificed for a country whose people wanted democracy far less than the “Neocon's wanted it for them…clearly General Tony Zinni's USMC (ret) latest book, Before the First Shot is Fired; How America can win or lose off the battlefield, is being published at a most opportune time.

Writing with an honesty rare in Washington, D.C, “Before the First Shot” is Zinni's assessment of why America's foreign and military policy-making is ineffective, if not harmful, to America's national interests. In conjunction with co-author Tony Koltz, he discusses why the complex question “Are we warriors, peacekeepers, or liberators?” of Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond needs to be honestly discussed and answered when military actions are being considered.

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2014/12/172014/12/17

Review: The New Story – Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Diplomacy, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Priorities, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Inger Lise Oelrich

5.0 out of 5 stars Addresses a Major Vacuum in Our Approach to Any Challenge, 16 Dec 2014

This is a hugely important book that I hope will become popular in the USA, and translated into other languages. I learned of its existence while attending a Findhorn Foundation event in Scotland, “The New Story Summit.” At one point there was a discussion of how United Nations “peacekeepers” are sent in to keep the peace but do so at the point of a gun, without any training in human interaction or the fundamentals of story-telling, narrative weaving, listening, observing, and all the other human “arts.” This one story impressed me greatly.

Having now read the book, I want to emphasize my enchantment by confessing that I am a Naked Truth kind of person, the diametric opposite of the Story Teller. As with UN peacekeepers, I have been badly trained, equipped, and organized for a world in which conversation and story-telling are alternatives to confrontation and violence.

Although the author and the book focus on the role of story-telling in relation to peace-making, I would emphasize its value in creating common prosperity at well — in creating the means of self-governance with respect for the limits of nature and the importance of doing no harm.

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2014/12/092014/12/11

Review (Guest): The Accidental Admiral – A Sailor Takes Command at NATO

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Military & Pentagon Power, Philosophy, Politics, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy

James Stavridis

Essential Reading from the Finest Naval Officer of a Generation

ByMichael N. Pocalykoon November 3, 2014

Admiral James Stavridis is the finest naval officer of a generation and almost parenthetically a magnificently gifted writer. This memoir, his second, is an incredibly incisive book packed with meaning, history, and introspection. Published just after his retirement from active duty and taking the helm of The Fletcher School, THE ACCIDENTAL ADMIRAL is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the challenges and struggles of modern statecraft from a distinctly military vantage.

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2014/12/062014/12/07

Review: EMERGE! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle East

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Public Administration, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Elza S. Maalouf, Foreword by Don Beck

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary — Empowering, World-Changing, Rich in Substance, December 6, 2014

This book was recommended to me by Michael Ostrolenk, whom I consider one of the most inspiring transpartisan figures in America today, and endorsed by Elisabet Sahtouris, evolution biologist and “Yoda” to many of us. Given those two recommendations, my own review is pro forma, summary notes for smart people.

This is a most extraordinary book that I found deeply absorbing, inspiring, and practical. It is an original work in every possible sense of the word, and brings to the public insights, concepts, and methods that are essential to creating peace and prosperity among vastly diverse groups whose cultures, mind-sets, life conditions, and existing forms of governance and economics are not just in conflict, but downright pathologically dysfunctional.

Within this rich offering are a few things that are simply not found elsewhere, that could and should redefine and mature Western and Eastern understanding and practice:

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