Review (Guest): Gandhi and the Unspeakable

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Culture, Research, Justice (Failure, Reform), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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James W. Douglass

Reviewed by Christian Newswire

Ghandhi and the Unspeakable looks upon the father of the Indian independence movement and examines why a prophet of nonviolence was assassinated by Hindu nationalists during a prayer meeting in New Delhi.

From James W. Douglass, the bestselling author of JFK and the Unspeakable (Orbis 2010), Ghandhi and the Unspeakable shines new light on the untimely death of Mohandas Gandhi. Following the theme of his study about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Douglass shows how the people who conspired to kill Gandhi hoped to destroy a compelling vision of peace, nonviolence and reconciliation.

By tracing the story of Gandhi's early “experiments with truth” in South Africa, Mr. Douglass shows how Gandhi confronted and overcame the fear of death. He also explains why, as with the case of JFK's death, this story matters today and what can be learned from Gandhi's truth and its opposition to the powers of his time.

Mr. Douglass is a scholar and peace activist. His book about the JFK assassination is widely acclaimed by historians and political scientists as one of the most important books written about the subject. Gandhi and the Unspeakable, according to Publisher's Weekly, “provides readers with a slim, elegant volume containing explosive insight into who conspired to assassinate the father of modern nonviolence and why.”

See Also:

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

Review (Guest): TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the “American Taliban”

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Jesselyn Radack

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Important,February 8, 2012

David C N Swanson (Charlottesville VA United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

It began with that monstrous young man so evil we needed to blindfold him and strap him to a board, that confusing young man who looked like Christ but cast us in the role of crucifiers, that treasonous young man who brought dark and heathen evils across linguistic and cultural borders and brought torture onto the list of accepted government actions.

When you hear the phrase “American Taliban” you probably think of a young American who betrayed his country, aided its enemies, and – like Saddam Hussein – was behind the attacks of 9-11. John Walker Lindh was an American. That part is accurate. He converted to Islam at age 16 and traveled to Yemen to study classical Arabic and Islamic theology. In 2001 he went to Afghanistan to join an ongoing battle between a political group funded by Russia and another group funded by the United States. Lindh joined the group that was backed and funded by the Bush Administration. It was called the Taliban. Lindh trained to fight the Northern Alliance, not civilians, and not the United States. But, after 9-11, the United States attacked the Taliban, and Lindh attempted to escape and return to America.

Instead he and other soldiers were captured by the Northern Alliance and beaten senseless in the presence of two CIA officers, Johnny “Mike” Spann and Dave Tyson, who interrogated Lindh and threatened him with death on the spot. When some of the other prisoners rebelled (Lindh was not involved), Northern Alliance troops shot and killed scores of prisoners, many with their arms tied behind their backs. Lindh was shot in the leg. Spann was killed. (Though he was not involved, Lindh was later charged with conspiracy to murder Spann.)

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Review: Polarity Management – Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Barry Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Much Less Complicated Than Expected, a Great Workbook,April 16, 2012

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I bought this back in December 2011 when I was scrounging around for books on panarchy (see for instance, Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. It stayed in my pile as other books moved because my first impression was that it was more complicated than I cared to deal with and might – shudder — even include mathematical formulas. I was wrong.

This is a very straight forward book that I recommend as a read-ahead or work book for any group seeking to radically evolve their internal decision making processes away from the current standard of “I talk, you listen; I decide, you obey.” It has clear charts, the right amount of white space, and I put it down thinking very well of the book.

Panarchy is an evolution of the whole systems approach to anything, with the clarity and integrity of FEEDBACK LOOPS among the elements being the core of any successful system. If everyone does not talk; if everyone does not listen; if everyone does not decide; if everyone does not act in harmonization with all others, system failure is inevitable.

Interesting to me, because Harrison Owen is a friend and mentor, this book is a restatement, in panarchic terms, of his path-finding work, Open Space Technology: A User's Guide–I also recommend his more recent Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World.

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Review: GLOBAL PREDATOR – U.S. Wars for Empire

6 Star Top 10%, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
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Stewart Halsey Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars for Coherence, Simplicity, & Morality,April 1, 2012

I read a lot — over 1800 books (including some DVDs) here at Amazon, in 98 categories, all but one non-fiction. This book is by a self-taught historian and self-described contrarian revisionist, and I will observe with the utmost respect that this author writes in the same vein, with the same quality, as Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project), and even Carroll Quiqley's Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time.

What makes this book spectacular–and strongly recommended for anyone–student or adult–who desires to understand the history of the United States of America with intelligence and integrity–is the elegantly straight-forward but devastatingly disturbing blend of facts–with superb notes at the end of each chapter.

I am very disappointed that the publisher has not taken advantage of Amazon's absolutely priceless “Look Inside the Book” feature, so I will take the time here to list chapters and appendices.

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Review: The Triumph of Consciousness – Overcoming False Environmentalists, Lapdog Media and Global Government

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Environment (Problems), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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Christopher James Clark

5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet Extraordinary — With an Index & Bibliography Would Be a SIX,March 21, 2012

This review is from: The Triumph of Consciousness: Overcoming False Environmentalism, Lapdog Media and Global Government (Paperback)

I stumbled on this book by accident, and it has astonished me. With all the books I have read, this is the one book I might recommend to anyone — in school or beyond school — including those who (like myself) have multiple graduate degrees and/or read continuously.

This book so impressed me that I was contemplating making it a Six Star and Beyond (10% of the books I read make it into that category, see the rest of them at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog under Reviews / 6 Stars. All my reviews lead back here to Amazon. What the book is missing, and I certainly recommend it to the publisher for what I hope will be another printing, is an index of all names, and a consolidated bibliography. The endnotes are superb — this is a solidly researched and very nicely presented over-view of all of the negative forces seeking to destroy the possibility of a world that works for all.

Although the author takes care to cover the usual suspects — the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, etcetera, he is the first author I have found who truly “gets” that every organization is a “front” and that no organization has a New World Order agenda — that is the preserve of the top 200-300 families who regard the Earth as their personal farm. They operate under what is called “deep secrecy” (no paper trail, no audio trail). The organizational leaders — including the President of the United States — are puppets who are fed a mix of information and money to keep them on “on course.”

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Review: Rescuing the Enlightenment from Itself – Critical and Systemic Implications for Democracy (C. West Churchman’s Legacy and Related Works)

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Priorities, Public Administration, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Janet McIntyre-Mills

5.0 out of 5 stars Original Solution Not Chosen by Club of Rome, They Blew It,March 4, 2012

This is a seminal work going back in time, integrating reflexive practice, what is now known as third phase science and dialogic design science. A major contribution within this book is A. N. Christakis, “A Retrospective Structural Inquiry of the Predicament of Mankind, Prospectus of the Club of Rome.”

The short story: the Club of Rome chose the Meadows/Randers top-down micro-management solution now famous as the Limits to Growth model. They rejected the reflexive / third order science solution that recognized that all humanity must be engaged, all humanity must comprehend and agree on solutions, or the solutions would never be implementable nor sustainable.

Other vital books that close the circle on where a few of us continue to try to make progress:

Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (paperback)
Idealized Design: How to Dissolve Tomorrow's Crisis…Today (paperback)
How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom And Power to Construct the Future (Research in Public Management (Unnumbered).)
Architecture in Transition
The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning (PB)
A Democratic Approach to Sustainable Futures: A Workbook for Addressing the Global Problematique
Science of Generic Design: Managing Complexity Through Systems Vol 1 and Vol 2
A Handbook of Interactive Management
Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World
Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure

My own book that I cannot link to but am allowed to mention, is THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust. Find it here on Amazon. I believe Western “democracy” (largely a fraud) and Western capitalism (largely predatory and now gravely wounded by the legalized global financial fraud of Goldman Sachs, Morgan, Citi-Bank, and Bank of America, among others) are both going to implode in the near term (by 2014). Solutions are going to come from bottom up. All of these books are critical design-related texts for bottom-up holistic design, what Buckminster Fuller called “comprehensive architecture.” We need to future-proof our cities, one block at a time. This book is a fine starting point.

Review: The Information Diet – A Case for Conscious Consumption

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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Clay Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Gift Book, Gift Idea, Gift Economy, Get a Grip,February 18, 2012

I received a copy of this book as a gift, and gladly so since the top review at this time is unfairly dismissive while also confessing that the reviewer only read the first third of the book (but evidently not the preface (first page) that states plainly (first sentence, actually), “The things we know about food have a lot to teach us about how to have a healthy relationship with information.”

Having just reviewed The Telescreen: An Empirical Study of the Destruction and Despiritualization of Consciousness, and so many other books here at Amazon, I easily connect the point in last night's reading: that food, medicine, education, and the media are all “co-conspirators” in dumbing down a human population whose brains started out as enormous pools of potential creativity, to this book. The information — and the food and the medicine and the tabloid garbage we are ingesting — is killing us.

What the first reviewer completely misses is that this is the first manifesto, beyond The Age of Missing Information, to actually focus on how out of control our relationship is to the world of information. As a lifetime professional in these matters I can state clearly that not only are governments substituting ideology for intelligence and corruption for integrity, but so are all the other communities of information (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government / non-profit. We live in a totally corrupt world where — right now — banking families (Rothschild et al) own the banks and the banks own the two-party tyrannies (or the outright dictators) that own government, and they own the the corporations, with the 99% being expendable fodder for 1% theft from the commonwealth. This book is a cry from the heart, and an eloquent one at that.

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