Public Administration – Page 26 – Public Intelligence Blog

2007/01/282009/12/04

Review: The Great Turning–From Empire to Earth Community

6 Star Top 10%, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Information Society, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

People are the new super power–local resilience, global community,

January 28, 2007

David C Korten

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is unquestionably a five-star work of reflection, integration, and focused moral intent. On the other hand, while it introduced a broad “earth-friendly” literature that I was *not* familiar with, it does not “see” a much broader literature that I have absorbed, and so I want to do two things with this review: feature the highlights from this book, and list a number of other works that support and expand on the author's reflections for the greater good of us all.

Early highlights include the continued relevance of Dennis Kucinich and the emerging value of the Case Foundation and Revolution Health as funded by Steve Case, founder of AOL. The author posits early on the choice we have been a great unraveling and a great turning. He describes all our institutions as failing at the same time that we have unlimited potential. He concludes, as have many others, that centralized authority is not working, and suggests that we must confront that which does not work and devise new constructive alternatives (“for every no there must be a yes”).

In the middle of the book he describes the five levels of consciousness as magical, imperial, socialized, cultural, and spirirtual. I would have put socialized ahead of imperial, since the industrial era used schools to socialize us into both factory workers and conscripts for the armed forces. He concludes this section with a commentary on moral autism, which of course reminds us of nakedly amoral Dick Cheney.

The author moves toward a conclusion by pointing out that people are the new super-power, with the Internet and its many new features as the foundation for bringing people together and making people power effective.

A large portion of the middle section is a historical review of America, with its genocidal, slavery, and unilateral militant interventionist nature, and its extreme inequality now, which the literature on revolution clearly identifies (the latter, concentration of wealth) as a precurser to almost inevitable violent revolution).

The book ends with four strategic elements:

1) Awakening of cultural and spiritual consciousness
2) Resistance of the imperial empire's assault on children, families, communities, and nature
3) Form and connect communities of convergence
4) Build a majoritarian political base.

In parting notes he points out that the status of our children is the key indicator of our future, and that today one out of every two children is born into and lives into poverty (one reason why the High Level Threat Panel put poverty above infectuous disease and environmental degradation).

He ends by calling for local living economies at a human scale.

If you have the time to only read one book within the broad literatures of imagination, corporateism, and constructive prospects for the planet, this is probably that book. Below I want to a list quite a few that support this author's thesis, and for which I have provided a summative as well as an evaluative review within these Amazon pages:

The Corporation
WALMART-HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE (DVD/FF/FR-SP-SUB)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

See also:
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
“The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past”
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Deep Economy

There are many more should you wish to explore via my categorized lists, but the above both lend great credence to the author of this single book, and expand considerably on the reflections that he has distilled into this one book.

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2007/01/092019/09/06

Review: VICE–Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

7 Star Top 1%, Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Biography & Memoirs, Censorship & Denial of Access, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Privacy, Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

7 Star Life Transformative Showing True Perfidy in White House = 23 Documented High Crimes That Should Put Cheney in Irons Immediately,

January 9, 2007

Lou Dubose

EDITED 5 September 2007 to add ten links to other related books.

This book is vastly more detailed, and covers more high crimes and misdemeanors, than either State of Denial, which misunderstands Bush as being in charge, or Crossing the Rubicon, which focuses primarily on Cheney's role in first permitting 9-11, and then working assiduously to cover up his malicious malfeasance. See also Ron Susskind's book, “One Percent Doctrine,” which crucifies Cheney, Rumseld, and Rice.

I take this book so seriously that I urge everyone to get the “Do It Yourself Impeachment” kit. He should be required to immediately resign or be impeached. He should not be allowed to serve another month in office.

For the sake of brevity, here is a list of impeachable offenses documented by this book:

1) Secret meetings in violation of the law to include exclusion of government experts
2) Refusal to honor demand from Congress for a list of participants
3) Lies to the public about Iraq, while holding maps of oil fields and already having in mind a US-only domination of those oilfields (he first focused on Iraqi oil while serving Secretary of Defense Brown)
4) Over-ruling of the Environmental Protection Agency on very important matters including its concern over Halliburton's reliance on hydraulic fracturing that uses chemicals that contaminate aquifers–Cheney personally ensured that the EPA's wording was replaced with Halliburton's wording.
5) Consistent and pervasive usurpation of Congressional authorities and consistent and maliciously deliberate avoidance of appropriate disclosure.
6) Fostered attacks on Sy Hersh, and considered authorizing a break-in on his home.
7) From the 1970's, see also Ron Susskind's One-Percent Doctrine, subverted the authority of the Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, and teams with Justice Scalia (then an assistant attorney general) to increase executive privileges and push back reforms.
8) As a Congressman personally blew off Russian offer in 1983 for arms cuts, and subverted the authority of the President and the Secretary of State then serving.
9) As an extremist Republican, supported Ollie North and the White House in violating the Congressional prohibitions on aid to the Contras, and obstructed justice thereafter.
10) Page 78 has a lovely discussion of how Cheney and North were “in the zone” in deceiving the public and Congress during the televised hearings.
11) Adopted as his own the lunatic report by Khalizad (who is a very lazy scholar, see my review of his rotten RAND book on revolution) and Libby, on how the US as a superpower should be able to do ANYTHING.
12) Attempted to undermine due process and keep tactical nuclear weapons in the Army inventory.
13) Subverted the authority of the Secretary of State (Colin Powell) by allowing his daughter to overrule Ambassadors and meet privately with various heads of state.
13) Lied repeatedly to the public about his continuing financial equities with Halliburton, and was so involved in giving Halliburton up to 16 billion in no bid contracts.
14) Shut both foreign competitors and more cost-effective indigenous contracting solutions, severely harming the national security of the United States by fostering an environment of unproductive looting by Halliburton, Bechtel, and others.
15) Ignored his dual mandates on terrorism and intelligence. The book suggests that Bush was not briefed on Al Qaeda for the first eight months he was in office (the Vice President's priorities were energy and missile defense).
16) Personally impeded negotiations with North Korea after they proved amenable to diplomatic engagement.
17) Personally rejected Iranian overtures for negotiation conveyed by the Swiss in 2003
18) Personally reinforced Rumsfeld on use of torture, by-passing the President's more measured restrictions.
19) Conspired with Speaker Hastert to subordinate the House of Representatives, using a special office of his own (first time in history) so that Representatives could be brought to him rather than his calling on them.
20) Manipulated the President into numerous “signing statements” inconsistent with the will of Congress that ignored legislation then in force.
21) “Bureaucratically emasculated” the President (page 177–if the President has a friend that reads this review, PLEASE get the book and the review to the President–he really may have no idea his balls have been cut off)
22) Contemptuous and manipulative of the CIA, refusing to accept their best professional judgments based not only all source intelligence, but on a extraordinary effort by Charlie Allen in running line crossers into Iraq to document beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were no weapons of mass destruction there.
23) Lied repeatedly, over and over, to the public, to Congress, to the President, to foreign leaders, even after the lies were exposed he continued to repeat them.

The book does not discuss the 9-11 situation and emerging findings that place the Vice President at the center of our deliberately inept response.

Two gems apart from the impeachable offenses:

1) The search for a Vice President was a complete fraud, he was picked from day one, and made a fool of every serious candidate, while also personally leaking to destroy Keating just to ensure the only real rival would not be considered at the last minute.

2) The discussion of Joe Lieberman's refusal to confront Cheney with all that was known to be wrong with him was explained at the time as “taking the high moral road.” I am not so sure. I speculate that Lieberman is actually a neo-con and has been playing the Democrats for fools while minding the interests of his Wall Street masters.

On page 147 the authors discuss how Cheney accused Clinton and Gore of “extend[ing] our military commitments while depleting our military power.” Lovely. And now?

The authors conclude that Dick Cheney is “nakedly amoral.” I agree.

One final scary note: in the many doomsday drills that Cheney participated in across his career and inclusive of his Vice Presidency, they always failed to reconstitute Congress.

Dick Cheney has done more damage and is a greater threat to our Republic and others, than Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined.

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
9/11 Mysteries Part 1: Demolitions
9/11: Press For Truth
9/11 – The Myth and the Reality
Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11

For those wondering why Congress failed to do its Article 1 job (hence all Members are impeachable for dereliction of duty as well):
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
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

2006/12/102009/12/04

Review: Public Philosophy–Essays on Morality in Politics

5 Star, Intelligence (Public), Philosophy, Politics, Public Administration, Strategy

Amazon Page

Brilliant Work, Foundation for the Future of the Republic,

December 10, 2006

Michael J. Sandel

I picked this lovely book up on a whim while visiting the Harvard bookstore, and let it lie fallow for months. It was not until I read Paul Hawken's “Ecology of Commerce,” that this book demanded to be read. I had no idea how well the two would go together.

Published in 2005, it is a balanced collection of essays written over the previous decade, and I found it to be better than any textbook or more labored treatise. This book really worked for me. Here are the highlights that made this book vital reading for any adult concerned about where we are going in the aftermath of the Bush-Cheney debacles.

Liberalism–root word liberty–has lost its moral voice. It has no compelling vision just when public philosophy is most needed. The author is quietly passionate about how values–enduring values–both enable localized self-governance and come from localized communities where everyone knows one another.

According to the author, individual knowledge of public affairs, and a sense of belonging to a larger commonwealth, are the underlying foundation for the Republic as our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us–“a Republic, if you can keep it,” as Benjamin Franklin told us all.

This author is most powerful in making the case that “laissez faire” on values is to NOT have national values. The author uses the early portion of the book to make the case that the larger question on anything is this: what strategy or policy will most support the nurturing of self-governance at the local and state levels? This connects DIRECTLY to the current focus in Ecotopia (British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington State) on resilience and on the equivalent focus by the global public health intelligence network on the same word: resilience!

I was moved, almost to tears, to read this author quoting and discussing Thomas Jefferson and Justice Brandeis, who were both certain that concentrated power is threatening to liberty and self-governance. Think Wall Street–Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, Wal-Mart, Exxon.

The rise of big government, led by Teddy Roosevelt, was intended to be an answer to big business, but it did not work. Of course, carried to its logical conclusion, global business demands big government (that will not work).

The author tells us that we went astray in the 1960's. We focused on economic growth and federal justice instead of the larger issue of what “political economy” would reinforce rather than diminish citizenship. We focused on economic outputs rather than either the cost of inputs (see Herman Daly and Paul Hawken) or the goal of nurturing community.

This is really quite a brilliant thoughtful book. In the middle section it explores the conflict between the concepts of rights of individuals versus the common good being imposed. One has to ask (see George Will) should soulcraft be imposed or nurtured?

The book/author also drives a stake in the heart of globalization and corporations–it's about the economy, stupid, BUT not as Bill Clinton used it. It's about decentralizing economic power, the collision between capitalism and community.

The author touches on impeachment (which is on the minds of many as citizens rally all over America today to demand that Congress impeach Bush-Cheney) and can not be more explicit: impeachment is warranted when the President (or the Vice President in his name) undermines the system of government–the separation of powers. [I would note, as an estranged moderate Republican, that we should at the same time impeach every Republican serving in Congress for abdicating their role as the FIRST branch of government (see Coburn).

From this book we are reinforced in our belief that corporate money is impacting on the political system in ways absolutely not anticipated by our Founding Fathers. Money has supplanted reasoned dialogue.

The book closes with a marvelous review of Dewey as the greatest American philosopher, focusing on pragmatism as well as an openness to experimentation, a love of tolerance, and an avoidance of the absolute. For Dewey, democracy was not about giving every individual what they wanted but rather about drawing the greatest good from the greatest number of diverse individuals.

In passing the author notes that the use of nuclear weapons, genocide (and one might add, ecocide) are global wrongs, for they destroy entire multi-generational cultures in all their history and diversity.

The author chooses to end with a salute to Rabbi David Hartman's interpretative pluralism (room for varied interpretations) and ethical pluralism (room for varied faiths). The author and Hartman conceive of religion as a means of making sense of the world and of one another.

The last bit focuses on John Rawls, and the three debates he inspired: utilitarian versus rights; what rights? and should the government be neutral?

There is a breath-taking finish, describing how a judge approved Martin Luther King's march on public highways, despite George Wallace's objections, because the enormity of the wrongs being protested warranted such a significant granting of privilege.

I am in awe of this author, of this book, and of the Republic for which it stands.

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2004/11/112009/12/04

Review: HOW ISRAEL LOST

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion

Pulitzer American Jew Speaks Truth to Power,

November 11, 2004

RICHARD BEN CRAMER

This book wanders a bit but renders a valuable service in speaking truth to power and considering, from a prize-winning investigative journalism perspective, “the story” of how Israel moved so far from its roots as a home for Jews, to a fanatical almost fascist and certainly zealot state concerned with its own survival. I recommend that the review by Mohamed F. El-Hewie, the New Jersey man with the Islam point of view be read in conjunction with this review.

The author opens with an examination of how the “story of Israel” has gone from core reality (a place so barren it makes the Congo look good, Palestinians kicked off their land after Israeli terrorists expelled the British occupying power) to a “land of milk and honey” with deserts made prosperous by Israeli industry–he neglects to mention that Israeli agriculture contributes 3% of the GDP while using 50% of the water, and that most of the water is being stolen by Israeli from underneath land outside Israeli territory.

From an “information operations” perspective, this is a really fascinating and well-told story of how Israel created several myths that sold not only in the USA but all over the world. I write in the margin, “Israel is the ultimate Potemkin village.” The author is also good at exploring the early signs that these myths are being exploded, the world is catching on, and US support for Israel may be on the verge (within five to seven years) of being withdrawn.

As he is both an American Jew and a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, I give this author special marks for combining a loyalty to his faith with a loyalty to the truth. The Islamic-oriented review from New Jersey adds a frame of reference I am not qualified to comment on, but I recognize it as valuable. Among the most important observations the author makes early on are these: 1) when Israel became an occupying power and got into the business of assassination as a routine method, censorship of Jews by Jews became commonplace–this was the “new aspect” of the Israeli regime. 2) At the same time, in America, self-censorship and popular protest of Jewish readers against Jewish writers critical of Israel, became more marked. The Jews of America–at least the vocal ones cited by the author–simply do not want to hear the truth–they are blindly bonded to the myths.

Sharon is slammed in this book many times over. The author credits Sharon with being the original Israeli army sponsor for assignations, and the several pages on Israeli assassination history and policy are alone worth the price of the book (pages 39-51). Sharon is recalled in the book by General Pundak as “a disgraceful officer–a liar, cheater, a swindler and suck-up, a killer and a coward.” I believe this–sounds like Chalabi and Arafat–the three were made for each other and disgrace us all.

The author explores a second crime against humanity characteristic of the Israeli bureaucracy: collective punishment. He builds a bridge from this–a policy that is explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Convention–to Israel's collective loss of shame and loss of emotional commitment to the “all for one and one for all” attitude that marked the early years. Now it is everyone for themselves, never mind what the authorities do “in our name.”

The chapter on why Palestinians do not have a state is full of interesting observations, including the author's view that the US audience simply does not know the Palestinian side of the story; that the occupation is costing 18% of Israel's GDP (just 1% over the 17% of the Israeli government budget that we provide them out of the US taxpayer's pocket–two different stacks of money, but the comparison needs to be made); and that the isolation of Gaza, and the honeycomb nature of the walls and barriers, are so grotesque as to be both Kafkaesque and Warsaw ghettoish–the victim has indeed become the perpetrator, and Israel cannot be seen, in its treatment of the Palestinians, as anything other than fascist and abusive.

Having torn apart the Israeli side, the author then moves to the Palestinian side, and two major ideas stay with me: first, the concept of honor so deeply rooted in Arab culture, an honor that the Israeli's are attacking with every humility they can impose; and second, the utter contemptible corruption of Arafat and the Palestinian security authorities.

The book moves to a conclusion with a retrospective look at the bargain with the devil made by the Israeli security authorities very early on, when they accepted a dictatorship of the government from the zealot orthodox rabbis. He also explores the various “tribes” now within Israel, concluding that two thirds of the “new Jews” are not Jews at all, but simply Russian and other opportunists who have succumbed to the global covert and overt action operations of the Jewish state seeking to bring in more bodies as part of a demographic campaign plan.

The author can be shocking. He makes a case that is the Jews of Israel who bear the bulk of the responsibility for starting “the hate” and that it is the Israeli government that originally funded Hamas as an alternative to Arafat–an unfortunate reminder of US government funding for Islamic fighters in Afghanistan who have now turned on us.

The author's note and acknowledgements at the end of the book are worth reading carefully, and includes a list of other books on this topic.

I expect a lot of negative votes on this review–that is the price we pay for offering honest opinions in a forum where a deliberate Jewish bloc attacks those like the author–and this reviewer–for seeking to move a balanced dialog forward. Amazon has new algorithms for detecting “hate votes” and “organized negative votes,” we shall see if those work here.

2003/10/282009/12/04

Review: The Health of Nations–Society and Law beyond the State

6 Star Top 10%, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Public Administration, Secession & Nullification, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

One of a Handful of Revolutionary Books,

October 28, 2003

Philip Allott

Edit of21 Dec 07 to add links and reassert importance of this work.

Of the 1000+ books I have reviewed on Amazon, this is one of a handful that can be considered truly revolutionary. Three others that come instantly to mind are those by Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, William Greider, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, and E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life.

This book is not an easy read. The author, a Professor of Law in the University of Cambridge, wrote an earlier work, Eunomia: New Order for a New World, that has remained similar obscure, and that is a pity, for what I see here is a truly brilliant mind able to suggest that the Congress of Vienna, the current law of nations, and the de-humanization of state to state relations, isolating the internal affairs and inhumanities of state from global public morality and indignation, are the greatest travesty in human history.

The author joins William Greider in suggesting that the state as a corporate personality is as immoral (and irrational in terms of natural law) as is the corporate personality that allows corporations to treat humans as “goods.” In this book the author sets out to do nothing less than logically overturn centuries of absolutist amoral power institutionalized by elites in the form of state governments with sovereign rights divorced from and with eminent domain over their subjects (vice citizens), and to propose a new form of globalized human society that restores the human aspect to relations among peoples and among nations of peoples.

This is a book that requires patience. It must be slowly and methodically absorbed. The footnotes are quite extraordinary, as is the summative and explicatory survey of many different literatures over many different historical periods.

The author is critical of universities for failing to develop the public mind, and offers a lovely exposition of how sanity, insanity, and public consciousness are all subject to the mythology of capitalism and the manipulation of the elites–in this he would find fellow travelers (smile) in Chomsky and Vidal. He concludes that diplomacy (and statecraft) as an articulation of the public mind and public interest have *failed*, and looks instead to some sort of social re-ordering from the bottom up.

This book, apart from offering an enlightened vision of the law as a living thing able to encapsulate changes morality and changing interests among parties, does nothing less than reconceptualize international relations. This author is to the law of nations what Vaclav Havel was to communism.

He touches on a point Henry Kissinger makes in the last of his books I reviewed (Does America Need a Foreign Policy? : Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century), and specifically that “The risk now facing humanity is the globalizing of the all-powerful, all-consuming social systems, without the moral, legal, political and cultural aspirations and constraints, such as they are, which moderate social action at the national level.” The world, in essence, has become much too complex and much too volatile and much too dangerous for archaic state-level forms of mandarin governance.

In the middle of the book, the author's review of how Germany previously collapsed into a patchwork of insignificant nations sounds all too much like the United States of America, where citizenship is losing its value, tyrannical minorities are in isolation from one another (and from reality), and the sense of national identity is too easily captured by a handful of neo-conservatives (modern Nazis). Interestingly, as with Havel, he notes the importance of art and culture as a means of synthesizing national identity, and would probably agree with E.O. Wilson (“Consilience”) as to the humanities being vital to the context and conduct of the sciences. His list of national “diseases” is both disturbing and timely.

He joins Jefferson and the founding fathers in focusing on the health and happiness of the people as the ultimate organizing principle (some would translate “happiness” as “fulfillment”, a more accomplished and less frivolous objective).

On page 137 he is quite clear in suggesting that capitalism as it is practiced today, is nothing less than a form of totalitarianism, and he goes on to say on page 139 that social evil is the greatest challenge facing humanity today. Instead of socializing individuals into the reduced status of “goods” we should be socializing the state into a representative and general democracy by rehumanizing humanity and rehumanizing the organizations that are supposed to provide collective voice to the people.

In following pages the author provides a brilliant catalog of the ills of democracy, reconceptualizes democracy as being based on the rule of law (for all) rather than on who rules (for the benefit of the few), and he explicitly condemns the largely unaccountable forms of concentrated power (by which we take to mean the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and other devices for perpetuating immoral capitalism irrespective of local needs).

The full force of the author's thinking comes into full stride in the concluding portions of the book as he integrates new concepts of international law, history, social relations, and new forms of intergovernmental relations truly representative of the species as a whole and the people as a moral force. He laments the manner in which an extraordinarily global elite has been able to “separate” people from morality and from one another, leading to a common acceptance of five intolerable things: 1) unequal social development; 2) war and armaments; 3) governmental oppression; 4) physical degradation; and 5) spiritual degradation.

The author concludes by proposing a new view of the human world, and his remarks must be read in the original. He ends, as do Will and Ariel Durant in their summative “The Lessons of History,” by noting that the necessary revolution is that which must take place in our minds, not on the streets.”

This is an utterly brilliant book that has been badly marketed and is grossly under-appreciated, even by the so-called intelligencia. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to cast off their slave clothes, stop being a drone, and live free.

More recent books that fully validate this superb work, with reviews:
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
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
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

2003/09/132019/09/06

Review: The Unconquerable World–Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

7 Star Top 1%, America (Anti-America), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Future, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Public Administration, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

7 Star Life Transformative Restores Faith, Non-Violent Restoration of People Power,

September 13, 2003

Jonathan Schell

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links

This book, together with William Geider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, and Mark Hertsgaard's The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, in one of three that I believe every American needs to read between now and November 2004.

Across 13 chapters in four parts, the author provides a balanced overview of historical philosophy and practice at both the national level “relations among nations” and the local level (“relations among beings”). His bottom line: that the separation of church and state, and the divorce of social responsibility from both state and corporate actions, have so corrupted the political and economic governance architectures as to make them pathologically dangerous.

His entire book discusses how people can come together, non-violently, to restore both their power over capital and over circumstances, and the social meaning and values that have been abandoned by “objective” corporations and governments.

The book has applicability to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places where the US is foolishly confusing military power with political power. As he says early on, it is the public *will* that must be gained, the public *consent* to a new order–in the absence of this, which certainly does not exist in either Iraq or Afghanistan, no amount of military power will be effective (to which I would add: and the cumulative effect of the financial and social cost of these military interventions without end will have a reverse political, economic, and social cost on the invader that may make the military action a self-inflicted wound of great proportions).

Across the book, the author examines three prevailing models for global relations: the universal empire model, the balance of power model, and the collective security model. He comes down overwhelmingly on the side of the latter as the only viable approach to current and future global stability and prosperity.

A quote from the middle of the book captures its thesis perfectly: “Violence is a method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.”

Taking off from the above, the author elaborates on three sub-themes:

First, that cooperative power is much greater, less expensive, and more lasting that coercive power.

Second, that capitalism today is a scourge on humanity, inflicting far greater damage–deaths, disease, poverty, etcetera–that military power, even the “shock and awe” power unleashed against Afghanistan and Iraq without public debate.

Third, and he draws heavily on Hannah Arendt, here a quote that should shame the current US Administration because it is so contradictory to their belief in “noble lies”–lies that Hitler and Goering would have admired. She says, “Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities.”

Toward the end of the book the author addresses the dysfunctionality of the current “absolute sovereignty” model and concludes that in an era of globalization, not only must the US respect regional and international sovereignty as an over-lapping authority, but that we must (as Richard Falk recommended in the 1970's) begin to recognize people's or nations as distinct entities with culturally-sovereign rights that over-lap the states within which the people's reside–this would certainly apply to the Kurds, spread across several states, and it should also apply to the Jews and to the Palestinians, among many others.

On the last page, he says that we have a choice between survival and annihilation. We can carry on with unilateral violence, or we the people can take back the power, change direction, and elect a government that believes in cooperative non-violence, the only path to survival that appears to the author, and to this reviewer, as viable.

This is a *very* important book, and it merits careful reading by every adult who wishes to leave their children a world of peace and prosperity. We can do better. What we are doing now is destructive in every sense of the word.

2003/08/202009/12/04

Review: High Noo–20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Public Administration, Survival & Sustainment, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Straight-Forward, Understandable, URGENT, “Strong Buy”,

August 29, 2003

Jean-francois Rischard

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to aadd comment and links.

Comment: This is still the best strategic overview and a book I would recommend all. See the others below.

Having read perhaps 20 of the best books on global issues and environmental sustainability, water scarcity, ocean problems, etc, over the past few years (most reviewed here on Amazon) I was prepared for a superficial summary, political posturing, and unrealistic claims. Not this book–this book is one of the finest, most intelligent, most easily understood programs for action I have ever seen. The book as a whole, and the 20 problem statements specifically, are concise, illustrated, and sensible.

The author breaks the 20 issues into 3 groups. Group one (sharing our planet) includes global warming; biodiversity and ecosystem losses, fisheries depletion, deforestation, water deficits, and maritime safety and pollution. Group two (sharing our humanity) includes massive step-up in the fight against poverty, peacekeeping-conflict prevention-combatting terrorism, education for all, global infectuous diseases, digital divide, and natural disaster prevention and mitigation. Group three (sharing our rule book) includes reinventing taxation for the 21st century, biotechnology rules, global financial architecture, illegal drugs, trade-investment-competition rules, intellectual property rights, e-commerce rules, and international labor and migration rules.

The author's core concept for dealing with these complex issues intelligently, while recognizing that “world government” is not an option, lies with his appreciation of the Internet and how global issues networks could be created that would be a vertical complement to the existing horizontal elements of each national government.

The footnotes and index are professional, but vastly more important, the author's vision is combined with practicality. This is a “doable-do” and this book is therefore my number one reading recommendation for any citizen buying just one book of the 360+ that I have recommended within Amazon. Superb.