Power (Pathologies & Utilization) – Page 22

2013/01/122013/01/12

Review: What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Science & Politics of Science, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Tony Juniper

5.0 out of 5 stars MUST READ, gift and share — a roadmap for true cost valuation at citizen level, January 12, 2013

I have long been a fan of Herman Daly's ecological economics and E.O. Wilson's concept of consilience, a form of holistic analytics, and of course Buckminster Fuller and Russell Ackoff, among other systems thinkers. This book, just published, is quite extraordinary, and in the absence of a Look Inside the Book offering, one of Amazon's best features, I want to list the chapters here and point to an online resource that provides compelling information supportive of buying this book and then sharing it or gifting it to others.

Chapter 1: The Indispensable Dirt
Chapter 2: Life from Light
Chapter 3: Eco-innovation
Chapter 4: The Pollinators
Chapter 5: Ground Control
Chapter 6: Liquid Assets
Chapter 7: Sunken Billions
Chapter 8: Ocean Planet
Chapter 9: Insurance
Chapter 10: Natural Health Service
Chapter 11: False Economy?

To get right to the web page that does NOT offer the book for free, only provides the supporting references and comments on each reference, search for:

what-has-nature-ever-done-us-sources-and-references

Continue reading “Review: What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?”

2013/01/102013/01/10

Review: Final Warning – A History of the New World Order

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

David Rivera

4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point, not the total map, January 10, 2013

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it has some real gems that I have not seen elsewhere, and on the other it can be very tedious. It was not until I was halfway through the book that I realized it was originally written in 1984, and that explained to me why I was suffering from epoch-shift in reading the book.

Certainly I recommend the book for anyone trying to piece together a mosaic of history, or better said, alternative history as this book is very much in the vein of those books written by iconoclasts that dispute the version of history taught in the schools, i.e. the “approved” history as written by the powers that be happy to treat humans as commodities. Looking more closely at the bibliography I see that the references are mostly from the 1960-1970's, and the most recent are from the 1990's. The book is dated, plain and simple.

Continue reading “Review: Final Warning – A History of the New World Order”

2012/12/232013/01/15

Review: Saucers, Swastikas and Psyops: A History of A Breakaway Civilization: Hidden Aerospace Technologies and Psychological Operations

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Science & Politics of Science, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Jospeh P. Farrell

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an Information Operations / Counterintelligence Hidden Gem, December 23, 2012

The cover does this book a dis-service. This is a SERIOUS book that should be used in serious courses of instruction for both Information Operations (IO) and Counterintelligence (CI). The book lacks an index, a terrible mistake on the part of the publisher, but I have to say the notes are world-class and this book earns my intuitive respect quickly.

This book is a bit rough but I put it at a solid five stars and even considered six (my top ten percent across 1800+ books) because this book does something extraordinary:

01 It makes the case for UFOs being a terrestial Information Operations (IO) Psychological Operation (PSYOP — never plural).

02 It connects US underground tunnel civilization (a possible explanation for the Pentagon's missing 2.3 trillion) and advanced technologies including “Nazi physics” versus “Jewish physics”

03 It connects the Rockefeller-Morgan Nazi-philes, Latin America, Switzerland, the Bank of International Settlements, and the drug cartels — in other words, this is also an excellent reading for Counterintelligence (CI).

I draw two major insights from this book:

Continue reading “Review: Saucers, Swastikas and Psyops: A History of A Breakaway Civilization: Hidden Aerospace Technologies and Psychological Operations”

2012/12/212012/12/21

Review: Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Norbert Haring and Niall Douglas

5.0 out of 5 stars Too costly, consider reading the reviews and Inside the Book, December 21, 2012

Over-priced at $99, this book makes one simple point: economists are the sluts of the social sciences, in the pay of the wealthy, and they have prostituted their profession in the most indecent obscene manner possible. Others have made similar points, what we really have here are two forms of crime — petty crime — economists kneeling for hand-outs — and master crime — financiers looting entire national economies just because they can — because government has no integrity, the media (once capable of investigative journalism) has no integrity, and the academy (economists and everyone else) has no integrity.

There are some excellent reviews of the book outside Amazon, I am stunned to not see any here.

As an alternative to this particular book, excellent as it is, I recommend one DVD and two books:
DVD: Inside Job
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism

William Greider's book makes the telling point that while physical assets have appreciated five times in the past couple of decades, financial derivatives appreciated seventeen times. We now know that Goldman Sachs, Morgan, Citi-Bank, Bank of America, and a whole slew of other banks are guilty of LIBOR rate fixing, global-level fraud and theft, and so on. Yet no one has gone to jail except in Iceland.

Continue reading “Review: Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards”

2012/12/152012/12/15

Review: Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities

Harvey Molotch

4.0 out of 5 stars Theatrically Naive in Its Own Way But Recommended, December 15, 2012

I'm the former spy and honorary hacker who sounded the alarm on cyber-security in 1994 and who questioned every aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, pointing out that the joint fusion centers would be a waste of money and that, I quote “50% of the dots will be bottom up dots and we have no way of ingesting them.” I am also an arch critic of the National Security Agency, which processes less than 5% of what it collects and is generally incompetent at 163 of the 183 languages that matter–it's also largely useless and very late on out of the way threats like Benghazi.

What the author does not realize is that DHS and especially the TSA are not about security. They are a combination of employment programs to reduce the stress of 22.4% unemployment, and an alternative pork fest now that Pentagon pork is starting to wind down. “Top Secret America” is less about invading the privacy of all US citizens, or theater, and more about continuing to spend money in insane ways that reward the industrial complexes and the banks at our expense. The leadership of DHS is not stupid — they simply do not have a mandate to actually perform in the public interest. The US Government spends money the way the RECIPIENTS of our tax dollars want it to spend money, NOT on what is in our best interests.

The author may also not realize that there are rogue elements within the ultra-secret side of the US Government that are out of control and willing to kill Americans on American soil (as well as overseas) to further perpetual war. There are also evangelicals and pentecostals who are in alliance with Israel, itself famous for false flag attacks on US aircraft and barracks as well as the occasional really outrageous act such as their attack on the USS Liberty. The FBI appears to have done some spectacular work clamping down on a handful of military officers who have been trying since 2007 to fake an attack by Iran on a US naval vessel.

Continue reading “Review: Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger”

2012/12/012012/12/01

Review (Guest): Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Gerard Prunier

5.0 out of 5 stars a comprehensive account of a vast conflict May 29, 2009

By Kirk Huff

This is going to be a complicated review.First, if you know nothing about the wars of central Africa over the past 15 years or so, in particular the Rwanda-related conflicts, this is an awful book to pick up and try to use as orientation. It assumes the reader already has a basic knowledge of the recent political events in about eight African nations and often launches directly into building cases against the conventionally-held wisdom, often without actually stating what the conventional wisdom is. I did my graduate thesis on the formation of an African Great Lakes rebel group, and I often had to stop reading to give my overworked brain time to process the flood of information or reread a section to make sure I understood Prunier's arguments. I can only imagine what readers who know nothing about the topic have to endure.

Second, one has to decide to what degree one trusts Prunier. If this book was written by someone besides Prunier, I would probably dismiss it largely or in whole. However, Prunier is the author of ‘The Rwanda Crisis,' considered a seminal early book on the genocide, and the author of ‘Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide,' also considered one of the best books of that conflict. In this recent book, Prunier recants entire storylines of ‘The Rwanda Crisis' and basically says, “Fourteen years ago, I discounted information that I now believe to be credible and this is the story as I now believe it to be.” So one has to decide if this is a sign that (1) Prunier has suffered some sort of mental breakdown or has perhaps been subverted by some political agenda or (2) Prunier has reexamined his sources and arguments in the light of new information, as a good historian should, to compile a more accurate portrayal. I seriously considered both as options, but decided that Alternative 2 was the most likely. You will see other reviewers who have decided otherwise.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe”

2012/10/222012/10/22

Review: The Race for What’s Left – The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources

4 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Environment (Problems), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

cover race for what is left — Amazon Page

Michael Klare

4.0 out of 5 stars All the Negatives, None of the Positives,October 22, 2012

I know and admire Professor Michael Klare and have given his earlier books such as his first blockbuster, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author rave reviews. This book is valuable as a resource but I fear that it is the last beating of the dead horse Michael has been riding for the past decade. His other books also merit reading,

Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (American Empire Project)
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

but the theme remains the same:

01) We're at Peak Everything

02) Special Interests own Governments

03) Governments go to war for Special Interests

While Michael calls for changes in our consumption, this book is missing both the convergence of the evil extractive interests and the emerging good of collective intelligence aka crowd sourcing, and the astonishingly fast forwarding of information technologies and “Open Source Everything” as a meme that I anticipate the Pirate Party (a party that went from non-existent to 50+ countries in 3.5 years) may adopt.

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