5.0 out of 5 starsCommon Sense Of, By, For the Community, October 5, 2014
From a second reading after attending The New Story Summit at Findhorn Foundation in Scotland.
QUOTE Stephan Duncombe (104): “”Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” But waiting for the truth to set us free is lazy politics. The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be told, and told well. It must have stories woven around it, works of art made about it; it must be communicated in new and compelling ways that can be passed from person to person, even if this requires flights of fancy and new methodologies.”
I bought this book at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) in NYC, along with Michel Sifry's The Big Disconnect: Why The Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet) that I am reviewing now, both of these books are huge, and the Sifry book relatively unknown when it should a “top 10” reading for all progressives.
This book (Beautiful Trouble), at 138 pages in pocket size (3/5ths of a normal pocketbook), is an utter gem. At a minimum it forces reflection. Produced by a team of people and organizations, this is a community resources in every sense of the word.
5.0 out of 5 starsCommon Sense Of, By, For the Community, July 23, 2014
EDIT of 5 October 2014 to add bullets (highlights) from a second reading after attending The New Story Summit at Findhorn Foundation in Scotland.
QUOTE Stephan Duncombe (104): “”Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” But waiting for the truth to set us free is lazy politics. The truth does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be told, and told well. It must have stories woven around it, works of art made about it; it must be communicated in new and compelling ways that can be passed from person to person, even if this requires flights of fancy and new methodologies.”
I bought this book at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) in NYC, just concluded, along with Michel Sifry's The Big Disconnect: Why The Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet) that I am reviewing now, both of these books are huge, and the Sifry book relatively unknown when it should a “top 10” reading for all progressives.
This book, at 138 pages in pocket size (3/5ths of a normal pocketbook), is an utter gem. At a minimum it forces reflection. Produced by a team of people and organizations, this is a community resources in every sense of the word.
By all means use Look Inside the Book, it does offer a Kindle version look at the contents, otherwise I would have repeated the table of contents here. This is an important book, perhaps most useful as an inspiration and as a source of reflection on what is possible. It is a book I will carry in my briefcase to visit across many days and places.
Here are some highlights from my notes:
+ Book offers a “pattern language,” in essence a formula for telling a new story with new means
+ See the website, a growing community
+ Song creates sympathy
+ Coordination across organizations and industries is key — most are fragmented beyond imagination
+ Debts are shared fictions – pull the plug
+ Winning the revolution is an information challenge — challenge the core premises publicly
+ Flash mobs work well, especially under repressive conditions
+ Strikes are non-violent but only work when they are general and cross-industry
+ Guerilla projection (projecting truth messages against facades without doing damage) is HUGE tool
+ Hoax stories that get picked up by mainstream media reveal the larger mosaic of lies that is the mainstream media
+ Core practices include clear motive and story, disruptive action with disciplined non-violence, open to participation
+ Strategic non-violence demands DEEP education of all participants to avoid false-flag provocations to violence
+ Repressed female and minority power is a huge resource to be respected and embraced
+ Highlighting human (and true) cost of any issue is not something the media does — we must
+ Play to your SECONDARY audience (the follow on viewers of the YouTube)
+ Shift the spectrum of allies from hostile to neutral to friendly to stalwart
+ Tell the story — the “naked truth” is simply not that effective because the story grabs the heart and the heart is central
+ Message discipline is vital — leave the conspiracy theories even if known to be true – for after the revolution
+ Listen to those most affected by the issue, let their authenticity be your foundation on that issue
+ Challenge the behavior in context, not the person — everyone really is a good person trapped in a bad context
+ Most are ignorant of the power they can exercise by withdrawing consent and buycotting
Below I list other titles to consider in two blocks — five in this genre, specifics of organizing, and five in the larger context of collective intelligence and public power.
Haitians live in a make-shift camp close to the airport. Port au Prince Haiti was rocked by a massive earthquake, Tuesday January 12, devastating the city and leaving thousands dead. Photo Marco Dormino
31 December 2010
FILE – In this Nov. 13, 2010 file photo, an ambulance worker prepares to remove the corpse of a man lying dead in a portable bathroom of a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In 2010 crisis has piled upon crisis in Haiti. More than 230,000 are believed to have died in the quake, and more than a million remain homeless. A cholera epidemic broke out in the fall, and in its midst a dysfunctional election was held, its results still unclear. Photo: Ramon Espinosa / AP
Boring, Original, Don't Know Enough to Give Less Than Five Stars
November 28, 2009
Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd
I found this book boring, and not nearly as breath-taking and inspiring as Robert Wright's Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, which altered my perception of everything else, and is right up there with E. O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge as one of my most respected readings.
However, and despite other's averaging a four, I feel such a sense of respect for what these two authors have done (with a superb bilbiography and a good index) that I cannot qualify this with less than five stars.
The two nuggets for me, with my interest in Epoch B leadership and self-organizing communities, came at the end:
Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime.
Robotic systems can’t replace a pilot’s gut instinct
BY COL. JAMES JINNETTE, USAF
Unmanned combat systems have fundamental limitations that can make their technology a war-losing proposition. These limitations involve network vulnerabilities, release consent judgment and, most importantly, creative capacity during air combat and close air support (CAS) missions. Although futurists might assume these problems away with grand ideas of technologies yet to be developed, during the next few decades these limitations will remain critical constraints on our ability to provide airpower in the joint fight.
AIR FORCE COL. JAMES JINNETTE is director of the Air Force Element at the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a recent Army War College graduate. Prior to his current posting, Jinnette was an F-15E squadron commander. He has completed three close air support deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
1) Chuck Spinney on how our partisan “leaders” are disconnected from reality and leading us over a cliff, with reference to John Boyd.
2. An extract and link to the always brilliant CounterPunch where David Michael Green discusses the core issue: Can America be salvaged?
3. A Phi Beta Iota editorial commentary on Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), Robert Steele (Paradigms of Failure, Data Pathologies), and Howard Zinn (A Power Governments Cannot Repress).
CHUCK SPINNEY: The article in Counterpunch by David Michael Green, “Can America be Salvaged?” is an brilliant expository argument describing what are in effect the destructive outcomes of self-referencing/incestuously amplifying OODA loops that are becoming ever more disconnected from reality.
