Religion & Politics of Religion – Page 20

2006/03/292009/12/04

Review: American Theocracy–The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

5 Star, Corruption, Economics, Misinformation & Propaganda, Religion & Politics of Religion

Brilliant integration of oil, debt, religion, Bush, and crime,

March 29, 2006

Kevin Phillips

This is a five-star book that offers up two very serious values:

1) There is no other author who has written in such depth, over the course of four books, on the Republican party, the Bush dynasty, and the inter-relationship between the religious right and corporate wealth. This Republican is as serious an analyst as any that can be found. he joins Clyde Prestowitz, Paul O'Neil, and Peter Peterson as “go to guys” for when Senator John Edwards forms the American Independence Party and breaks away from the idiot Democrats and the Clinton mafia.

2) The author has done his homework and very ably integrated, with all appropriate footnotes and index entries, three broad literatures, two of which I have read multiple books on (oil and debt), one on which I have not (radical US religion–fully the equal of Bin Laden and suicidal terrorists, these folks just send others to do the dying for them).

So I have to say, given that this is a serious book by a serious author, why so many obviously loosely-read individuals writing short dismissive reviews? I have to conclude he has touched a nerve. When I used to appear on NPR, before I was kicked off for condemning Israeli lobbyists and suggesting that the common Arabs (the real people, not the sadistic opulent corrupt House of Saud or the other dictators) never got a fair shake from the US, I would get hate calls and mail from what I now realize were know-nothing radical right-wing religious nuts. We'd get into the issues, and I would ask, “what books have you read on this?” only to be told, “There is only one book that matters, the Bible.”

Well, this author has helped me understand where the Bush constituency comes from: these are the folks that graduated from rote reading of the Bible to the “Left Behind” fiction series. They are the intellectual equals of the Islamic kids learning to be suicide bombers by reciting old Arabic they don't understand.

If you do not have the time or money to buy all the other books I have reviewed, spanning emerging threats, the lack of strategy and the inappropriate force structure, the anti-Americanism that we spawn, the corruption of Wall Street and the shallowness of white collar law enforcement, the end of cheap oil, the end of free water, the rise of pandemic disease, the coming date with destiny when the 44 dictators we support are overthrown and the US pays the price for its long-term nurturing of all but three of them….this book brings a lot together. It avoids only two really important topics: the environmental implications such as covered by TIME Magazine in the 3 April 2006 cover story on Global Warming; and the minutia of how America is no longer a real democracy–not only do most voters not vote, but once elected, most Congressman are corrupted immediately by lobbyists.

The author, who is uniquely qualified to sum this all up in this book because of his three prior books centered on the Bush Family, oil, and wealth, does a tremendous job of outlining how oil money ultimately bought the White House and Congress. If you have time for two other books, I recommend Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil in which a former LAPD investigator makes a case for indicting Dick Cheney for fabricating the march to war on Iraq under the delusion that we would get another ten years of “cheap oil” and Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy in which it is clearly documented that both Congress and the White House knew in 1974-1975 that Peak Oil was over, and they concealed this for another 25 years in order to keep the bribery coming–this was nothing less than a treasonous betrayal of the public interest worthy of retrospective impeachments for all concerned. The books by moderate Republicans Prestowitz (Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions) and Petersen (Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It) should be read as well as Brand Hijack : Marketing Without Marketing which is about why Paul O'Neil quit the Bush Administration–he realized that ideological fantasy and Dick Cheney had displaced a reasoned policy process, the Cabinet, and Congressional concurrence…..

This is a very bad time. This book is as good as any at setting the stage for intelligent people to campaign and vote in 2006 and 2008.

EDIT 7 Dec 07: Since I wrote this review, several gems are newly available:
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Plus)
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

and on and on and on….

2005/10/192009/12/04

Review: Dogs of God–Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors (Hardcover)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Religion & Politics of Religion

Historical Evaluation of Money, Religion, State Power, and Evil,

October 19, 2005

James Reston Jr.

There are no doubt many histories that will enlighten us as to the relationship between the rise of the State, its need for money, its use of the Inquisition to rob Jews and raise money, the role of religious intolerance of heresy, and the manner in which evil accompanies conquest. For myself, this book is more than enough, and it provides an elegant easy to read overview of the larger context in which Columbus discovered America.

I am reminded by this book of the arrogance of Spain (where my roots go to Catalan in the 17th century on my mother's side), as Columbus was sent with edicts in Spanish, and it was assumed that any natives that could not understand the Spanish edicts, read in Spanish, were consequently heathen and fair game for enslavement. So did Columbus bring to America not just slavery, but genocide as well.

The author excels at showing the human side of history, the manner in which craven banal human weaknesses wreak havoc on civilizations, tribes, and nations. There is one point in which I am reminded of the power of courtiers, and another in which the same courtier uses homosexuality as a means of subduing a king–both are all too close to reality today. In short, this book has lessons for us today, both in seeing how dangerous our fundamentalist religious extremists are in waging armed crusades lacking in contextual balance, how dangerous courtiers with too much power can be; how vulnerable nominally powerful rulers can be when they suffer from deep and unresolved inner conflicts (e.g alcoholism and nascient homosexuality), and how deeply the historical antipathies might lie within Islam against the West.

The relationship between evil, intolerant religion, weak kings and powerful courtiers, and suffering peoples of all faiths, is compelling depicted in this book–history is brought forward in a truly excellent manner. We learn, or we repeat.

Can anyone justify the Inquisition or the Crusades? Is it possible to denounce individual terrorists while embracing 44 dictators, many of them practicing genocide, others supporting the looting of their entire commonwealths? Could we not have spent the last trillion of our common wealth more wisely?

I put this book down thinking to myself, like Old Man River in Porgey and Bess, life and history move on, while the powerful continue to hold sway over the fortunes of their peoples. It is somewhat depressing to realize how little humanity has learned about relations among peoples since the 1500's.

2005/07/082009/08/07

2005 IJIC18/2 The Impact of Religion on Intelligence

Articles & Chapters, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Religion & Politics of Religion

18/2 Summer 2005 Religion & Intelligence

John D. Stempel, “The IMpact of Religion on Intelligence”

Slated for Peacekeeping Intelligence Book II (Fall 2009)

2005/05/072010/12/18

Review (Guest): The Phenomenon of Man

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Philosophy, Religion & Politics of Religion, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

5.0 out of 5 stars The Theory of Global Human Consciousness

May 7, 2005

By “Patrick” (Los Angeles, Ca.) – See all my reviews

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1945) was a Jesuit Priest, theologian, philosopher, and paleontologist who expanded on the concept of the noosphere originated by the Russian mineralogist and geochemist, Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945) who also originated the concept of the biosphere- the “life zone” where all biological life exists between the crust of the earth to the lower atmosphere or the “life envelope” surrounding our planet.

The “noosphere” or “thinking layer”, according to Chardin, comes about at that point in time when humans evolve to the realization of a global human consciousness and is totally aware of itself and then headed for the ultimate destination- the “Omega Point” or “Kingdom of God”. At this point, the earth is enveloped by a collective human consciousness.

Chardin uses both science and theology to support this theory and his dissertation on this is fascinating and thought provoking. Unlike most of his religious peers, he was a proponent of directional evolution and that Darwin had hit upon the proof of God's intent, that final destination of the human conscious evolution where the Creator is realized. Darwin, of course, preferred to distance himself from theological assumptions of species evolution, especially so with us humans and his religious wife.

Chardin distinguishes humans from all other life-forms because of our abilities to contemplate our existence, hence, the uniqueness of or the “phenomenon of man”. Hopefully, he concludes, that the human family will evolve to be totally conscience, intelligent and loving, cooperative, and rising far above our current chaotic existence. Amen to that lofty, but desirable goal!

The evolutionary path of the noosphere is laid out in Chardin's earth evolution and stated as: “We have been following the successive stages of the same grand progression from the fluid contours of the early earth. Beneath the pulsations of geo-chemistry, of geo-tectonic and of geo-biology, we have detected one and the same fundamental process, always recognizable-the one which was given material form in the first cells and was continued in the construction of nervous systems. We saw geogenesis promoted to biogenesis, which turned out in the end to be nothing less psychogenesis.” (p 181). And leading therefore, to “noosgenesis” or global consciousness. Finally, and due to the interconnectedness and seemingly intentional direction of life on earth, Chardin gives Earth a soul: Gaia thinking- Earth “intentionally” supports life.

No wonder then that Chardin is referenced and quoted in a mountain of science and religious works. His theories have influenced such great thinkers as: Lewis Thomas (“The Lives of a Cell”), Buckminster Fuller (“The Dymaxion Map”), the Gaia Theory- Earth as a conscious, intentional, self-regulating life-support system and expounded upon by Guy Murchie (“The Seven Mysteries of Life”) and later by James Lovelock (Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine”), Thomas Berry (“The Dream of the Earth”) and many, many more.

Chardin traveled the world on his scientific investigations and he was present at the discovery of the Peking Man in China. Some historians have intimated that much of Chardin's travels were at the behest of the Catholic Church for they were not thrilled with his attempts to blend science and religion and the farther away from Rome he was, the better.

The church cautioned him not to publish any of his works and faithful to that edict, he left them to a friend in the U.S. to publish posthumously to avoid further conflict and retaliation from the Church- bad memories of the history of the Catholic Church's terrible treatment of scientist and thinkers whose musings drifted from repressive, suffocating church dogma, i.e., Galileo Galilei, et al.

No matter where one's leanings are on religion or science, this is a potent dissertation on bringing science and religion together for awe and respect of life and eventual peace on Earth through global consciousness.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2005/05/042009/12/04

Review: God’s Politics–Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Hardcover)

5 Star, Religion & Politics of Religion

Jim Wallis for National Chaplain–Extraordinary Book,

May 4, 2005

Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis has my vote to be Chaplain to the Nation. This is an extraordinary book. Indeed, if the President has a Science advisor, I have to ask myself, why doesn't he have a Faith advisor?

I recommend this book be read together with “Faith-Based Diplomacy” by Douiglas Johnson, and “The Soul of Capitalism” by William Greider. This hard-hitting book is full of both common sense and scholarship. Over-all it slams both Right and Left–the Right for claiming that Jesus is pro-war, pro-rich, and a selective moralist; the Left for not embracing faith and God as part of the politics of America.

Early in the book I am immediately won over by the author's preliminary manifesto in his preface: we who have faith are not single-issue voters; we believe that poverty is a religious issue; that caring for God's earth is a religious issue; that war–and making peace–is a religious issue; that truth-telling is a religious issue; that human rights are a religious issue; that our response to terrorism is a religious issue; and finally, that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious issue.

Throughout this book the author returns again and again, to a theme that I am now seeing everywhere: morality matters. The author is superb at relating the power of faith and the morality of religion (not pretentious morality, but practiced morality) to the real world. On pages 105-107, if you are glancing through the book in a bookstore, he repeats key points he made a year after 9-11 on how to defeat terrorism–among his ten points a few simply leap off the page: 4. Let's define terrorism the right way, and allow no double standards. 5. Attack not only the symptoms, but also the root causes of terrorism. 6. The solutions to terrorism are not primarily military. And so on.

Poverty, economic justice, and *moral* capitalism are the underlying challenges that confront the author, and he does a really fine job in this book of showing how America will never be safe if we fail to address global as well as homeland poverty. (In this regard, see my reviews of “Working Poor” by David K. Shipler, and “Nickled and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich.)

The book ends with an extraordinary list of 50 predictions for the future. This list, by itself, is worth the price of the book. #45 is consistent with the eight movements centering around collective intelligence: “All our media will be owned by two or three corporate conglomerates unless and effective movement rises up to stop this trend and restore a genuinely democratic public discourse.” I have the strong feeling that the author's faith is being tested by both the Right and the Left–indeed, in the social and economic policy arena, the author, from a religious point of view, is a perfect counter-part to the Chairman of the Council of Foreign Relations, Peter Petersen, whose book, “Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It,” is the practical counterpart to “God's Politics.”

This is a world-class, Nobel-level discourse.

2005/01/152009/12/04

Review DVD: Tibet – Cry of the Snow Lion (2003)

6 Star Top 10%, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Philosophy, Religion & Politics of Religion, Reviews (DVD Only), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Liberation through Knowledge: Absorbing,

January 15, 2005

Shirley Knight

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add other significant DVDs.

Halfway through this probing, sensitive, sharp, spiritual documentary film I thought to myself, “wow, this is what CIA covert propaganda *should* be able to produce” and then instantly corrected myself: David Ignatius of the Washington Post has it right: overt action is vastly superior to covert action, and in this instance, a loose coalition of kindred spirits have come together in time and focus to produce something remarkable, something much more threatening to Chinese behavior in Tibet than any military armada: a collage of truth-telling.

This is a world-class documentary, full of vivid images, well-blended historical and modern footage, and extremely good production planning and voice over editing. Early on I was struck by the similarity between the Tibetans, the Native Americans, and the Guatemalan Indians, all of whom share some basic moral precepts.

The portrait painted of Tibet as a nation committed to the concept of spiritual education, is a compelling one. One analogy offered up by one of those interviewed I found especially compelling: Tibet was spending 85% of its budget on spiritual development, with 10% of its population in monasteries–this being the equivalent of America redirecting its entire defense budget toward education.

The documentary will clearly infuriate the Chinese, for it carefully itemizes the many ways in which Tibet is uniquely Tibetan, including in its language, greatly distant from Chinese. Shown are Chinese torture instruments, including electrical cattle prods used in the vaginas of nuns and the mouths and throats of monks. The photographs are graphic.

Also covered are the genocide, the torture, imposed by the Chinese, as well as the loss of morality–625 brothels to serve the Chinese garrison.

The documentary carefully covered the death of 30 million Chinese and half the Tibetan population that resulted from Mao Tse Tung's order that Tibet grow wheat instead of barley–shades of the Soviet Union and its failed socialist agriculture.

6,200 monasteries destroyed–as one Tibetan government official in exile notes, this is not just places of worship, but places of scholarship and cradles of a specific civilization.

A section of the documentary focuses on CIA training of the Tibetan resistance, the conclusion of the Tibetans themselves that CIA was not serious, only providing enough support to enable harassment but not victory, and then the coup de grace–Henry Kissinger selling Tibet out for the sake of engagement.

A very powerful section points out that the US, with its 89 billion dollar a year trade imbalance with China, is in fact subsidizing Chinese repression and genocide, not only against Tibet, but against Muslims in China and other separatists elements. US business, according to this documentary, has sold democracy out in favor of profit.

As the documentary drew to an end, I found myself asking again: is this CIA propaganda, as the Chinese would have us believe? Or is the Dalai Lama is fact the representative of a group that may well be the soul of the world, a kernel of hope for non-violent resolution to all that ails us? I found myself wishing that we did indeed have a more effective People's Intelligence Agency (PIA), one that I could trust, one that we could all trust, to actually get the facts right, without political, economic, or cultural manipulation and distortion.

I was educated by this documentary. I had never really thought about Tibet as other than a spiritual oddity. This documentary very effectively points out that it can and should be a zone of peace, not least because it is situated between China and India, two of the most populous nations on earth, between them holding one half of the earth's population, and both of them nuclear *and* poor.

The documentary ends on a high note. It explicitly calls for liberation through knowledge and compassion, and one educator is very effective in pointing out that no one expected apartheid to end in South Africa, or the Berlin Wall to fall, yet both came to pass. Tibet, by this telling, is next.

This is an eye-opening, intelligent, visually-stimulating, and spiritually unnerving documentary. These people–both the observers and the observed–have served us all well.

2004/12/122009/12/04

Review: The Qur’an Translation

4 Star, Culture, Research, Religion & Politics of Religion

Print too small, looking for easier version to study,

December 12, 2004

Sayed A. A. Razwy

As a purely administrative note, with all due regard for what is surely a very fine translation, the print in this book is too small to support careful study. I bought this book, am glad to have it, but the publisher made a mistake in seeking to put too much small font print on each page. For a subject of this importance, what is needed is an 8.5 x 11 text with annotations and a syntopicon.