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Karl Denninger
STRONG FIVE – Original, Award-Winning, Major Contribution, February 5, 2012

On the very last page of the book I learn that the author received the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award for Grassroots Journalism, for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown. This confirms my own already formed very high estimation of the author and his work. In fact, although I normally do links at the end of the review, let me open with some other books that are world-class and within which I place this work as comparable:

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY: Latin America in the Third Millennium
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (New in Paper)

Here is the author’s three-line conclusion to the longer chapter that ends the book (my own notes in parenthesis):

01 Federal and state governments KNEW what was going on, and are COMPLICIT. (This introduces me to the reality of “control fraud,” where the government commits impeachable acts that are not sanctioned; I also learn in this book that when Congress passes laws it does not include sanctions for failure by the GOVERNMENT to uphold those laws.)

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Herman Daly

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobel Level Foundation for Resilience & Sustainability, February 1, 2012

Dr. Herman E. Daly may well be a future Nobel Prize winner …he is especially well-regarded in Norway and Sweden, where he has received prizes one step short of the Nobel. He is the author, co-author, or primary contributing editor of many books that fully integrate the disciplines of economics and ecology. I bought the three most recent for the purpose of selecting one to give out at my annual Global Information Forum. I ended up choosing For The Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, in part because it is available in paperback and is not a more expensive “trade” publication; and in part because it is strong in laying out specific ecological policy areas in the context of a strong theological or ethical perspective. More on that in its own review.

Of the three books (the third one that I reviewed is Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics) this, the text-book, is assuredly the most up-to-date and the most detailed. If you are buying only one book for yourself, this is the one that I recommend, because these are important issues and a detailed understanding is required with the level of detail that this book provided. It should, ideally, be read with “Valuing the Earth” first (see my separate review of that book, from the 1970s updated with 1990s material and new contributions), then “For the Common Good”, and finally the text book as a capstone. But if you buy only one, buy this one.

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Clyde Coughenour

5.0 out of 5 stars Alternative Perspective, Very Naive on US Reality, January 30, 2012

I *like* this book. I’ve been running for the Reform Party nomination for President (there were three of us, now there are two, and I might drop out soon if I get a federal job and the Hatch Act kicks in). I mention that mostly to emphasize that everything I have learned in the six weeks I’ve been registered with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC ID C00507756) is relevant to the second half of my review. This book came to my attention via a press clipping service that helps me follow any mention of a third party — this book calls for a new third party Of, By, and For Workers — we used to call that Communism (just kidding), but seriously, the last part of my review is a pitch for what workers should do if they really want to take charge, as workers finally did in Norway and Sweden (it took them 25 years).

I would normally rate this book at four stars, there is a lot missing, but I have to say that in terms of earnest honest patriotic down-to-earth common sense and indisputable pro-labor attitudes, this book is solid, so I am putting it at five stars and linking below to some books that add the missing “weight” to this read. My reviews of all of the books I list are summary in nature, to help those with little time or little money.

The book is scattered, providing snapshots of all of the issues, showing very clearly where neither party, but especially the Republicans, can be trusted to look out for workers. Politics is theater–nothing is decided in the open, the real deals are behind closed doors and the taxpayer ALWAYS loses. I certainly give the book high marks for distilling a very complicated corrupt mess into a simplified structure, and I totally agree with the author that there are no reliable statistics from the government or corporations, but let me give you three that matter:

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Jose Arguelles

5.0 out of 5 stars Baseline Reading, VERY Dense, A Long Study,January 29, 2012

I read this book in galley form and forgot to post a review after the pre-order period ended. This book was a direct inspiration to my own forthcoming book from the same publisher that I am evidently not allowed to link to here at Amazon, The Open Source Everything Manifesto:Transparency, Truth, and Trust.

From the author:

It [noosphere] is a whole-systems paradigm that melds prophecy and analysis of current world trends. It is a perception that the transformation of the biosphere is inevitably leading to a new geological epoch and evolutionary cycle, and it is due to the impact of human thought on the environment that this new era — the Noosphere — is dawning.

This is a capstone work that integrates all the author’s past works, each linked here.

The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology
Earth Ascending: An Illustrated Treatise on Law Governing Whole Systems
Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs
Surfers of the Zuvuya: Tales of Interdimensional Travel
Galactic Meditation: Entering the Synchronic Order
Mandala
The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression
Book of the Transcendence: Cosmic History Chronicles Volume 6
The Arcturus Probe: Tales and Reports of an Ongoing Investigation
The Call of Pacal Votan: Time is the Fourth Dimension

and more. One could spend a lifetime on this author’s reflections.

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Yves Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars ECONNED,March 3, 2010

M. M. Thomas (Brooklyn) – See all my reviews

I’ve written quite a bit about the financial crisis, and God knows I’ve read nearly every book on the subject, and I have no hesitation in saying that if there is one book that gets it whole, and gets it right, and is THE book for the intelligent, thoughtful reader to turn to, it is ECONNED. This is not an anecdotal recitation of deal gossip (like, for example, Sorkin’s book); it’s not “source-based” journalism reflective of the way certain participants in the dire events that unfolded in 2007-2009 wish themselves to be seen. It lays out, in what is easily as clear, as direct, as smart and with as much force of fact as any financial writing today how exactly the fun and games that have nearly wrecked our economy and the lives of so many of us went down. Yves Smith is, unlike so many other writers feeding off the crisis, writing about it from the inside: with an unfailing grasp of where the details (where the devil lurks) fit into the larger pattern of financial perfidy and destruction, in this Doomsday Machine that Wall Street put together. The intelligent reader will understand that if you want to know why you’re suffering from acute ptomaine, you have to understand what went into the sausage you got it from. And then you have to be made to see plain the kind of restaurant or market that serves up this toxic offal. And then the regulatory failures that allow such places to be licensed. We have undergone one of the great crises in this nation’s history. It needs to be seen plain and understood. Deadline-driven blahblahblah won’t get the job done. But ECONNED does. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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Gabriel Kolko

5.0 out of 5 stars Simplify, Simplify, Simplify,June 22, 2009<

By Tracy McLellan (Chicago) – See all my reviews

One could almost condense the whole of Kolko thought into a single sentence: “Political problems have political and social, not military solution.” He says this at least four or five times in the current volume, as he has even more often previously. A common criticism of Kolko is that he’s repetitive. This doesn’t speak to the fact that the deafening silence with which his work is greeted is a far harsher, and equally invalid, criticism. Kolko’s alleged repetitiveness is more grasp of nuance and comprehensiveness than it is lack of imagination.

World in Crisis: the End of the American Century is an implicit rejoinder to what Kolko himself calls the lunatics in the Bush regime. It is the typically unique type of excellence in political observation I, at any rate, expect of Kolko. The essays in the current volume are a second, yet enduring draft of history reviewing the political turmoil of the last four or five years. They examine the financial crisis, US foreign policy, Israel, the current and historical US alliance system, US intelligence agencies, and other US policies. The essays have appeared previously on ZNet, [...], Counterpunch, in anthologies, and elsewhere. All of them are updated for this book, because, as Kolko notes, they become obsolete almost as soon as they are published due to the accelerated trajectory of geopolitical, technological, financial, and sociological events.

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David Swanson

War and Being and Nothingness

The best book I’ve read in a very long time is a new one: The End of War by John Horgan. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others. The central conclusion — that ending the institution of war is entirely up to us to choose — was, arguably, reached by (among many others before and since) John Paul Sartre sitting in a café utilizing exactly no research.

Horgan is a writer for “Scientific American,” and approaches the question of whether war can be ended as a scientist. It’s all about research. He concludes that war can be ended, has in various times and places been ended, and is in the process (an entirely reversible process) of being ended on the earth right now.

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The war abolitionists of the 1920s Outlawry movement would have loved this book, would have seen it as a proper extension of the ongoing campaign to rid the world of war. But it is a different book from theirs. It does not preach the immorality of war. That idea, although proved truer than ever by the two world wars, failed to prevent the two world wars. When an idea’s time has come and also gone, it becomes necessary to prove to people that the idea wasn’t rendered impossible or naïve by “human nature” or grand forces of history or any other specter. Horgan, in exactly the approach required, preaches the scientific observation of the success (albeit incomplete as yet) of preaching the immorality of war.

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Matthew M. Aid

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside the Secret World,January 16, 2012

By Retired Reader (New Mexico)

This is an interesting and informed account of how the major players of the U.S. Intelligence Community have conducted what the administration of President George W. Bush usually called the Global War on Terror. In the course of doing this its author, Mathew Aid, does a good job explaining the complexities involved in that War and specifically provides a very good summary of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and rocky relationship with sometimes ally Pakistan. The book does not cover all of the many intelligence pockets that have been directed towards counter-terrorism, but concentrates primarily on the activities of CIA, the FBI, and the NSA, but also notes the work of the military intelligence services and the NGA. Surprisingly the book also provides what appears to be a fair and accurate assessment of the contributions of both the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Aid provides a balanced and apparently accurate assessment of the overall performance of these agencies. He notes their successes and failures, but makes clear that the U.S. Intelligence System continues to be hampered by serious technical flaws and very weak leadership in its higher echelons. A good read that provides an educated description of how the U.S. in general and its intelligence system in particular has handled the threat of terrorism since the 9/11 tragedy.

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Phi Beta Iota:  The author is very blunt across the book about the routine lying that seems to be the norm for senior officers in both the military and political arenas.  He also has a great story about VP Cheney insisting on 24/7 helicopter cover for Blair Mansion when he was in residence as well as insisting that Google Map fuzz pictures of the place. We do not make this stuff up.  We can only wonder at what other insanities uniformed officers accept in their confused substitution of loyalty for integrity.

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Jerry Ray, Tamara Carter

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid Support for THE Book on USG Assassination of MLK,January 17, 2012<

I am unemployed and cannot afford books the way I once could, so my review is actually applause from the sidelines, and a pointer–something I can still do as the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, toward THE book:

An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (Updated)

MLK was assassinated at the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, with the active collaboration of the U.S. Army, and one suspects with at least the tacit knowledge of Lyndon Johnson, himself complicit in the assassination of JFK. I note with reverence that Bobby Kennedy calmed a major crowd with a voice close to that of MLK, only to be himself assassinated later. On JFK see:

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5.0 out of 5 stars America Desperately Needs More Illumination Such as This January 16, 2012

I received a review copy of this book [note to publishers: always ask first] and was glad to be offered a chance to read something as important as this. America desperately needs more illumination on the corruption in our government, and the evil done in our name without our permission but very much at our expense.

As a career veteran of the national security community–the Marine Corps and the Central Intelligence Agency–followed by seventeen years teaching 90 governments — 66 directly — how to get a grip on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) that provides 95% of what we need to know at 2% or less of the cost of what we spend now on secret intelligence–I am well-qualified to read this book from a patriot’s point of view.

A strong national defense capability does NOT exist in the USA today. Posturing fools such as Senator Rick Santorum have no idea what they are talking about when they seek to discredit those of us who do. The infantry, four percent of the force, takes eighty percent of the casualties and receives ONE PERCENT of the Pentagon budget. Within the other 99%, half–at least–is fraud, waste, and abuse that makes America weaker, not stronger.

This book, edited by David Swanson, is a very good deal at $25. Its 368 pages include chapters from thirty other authors besides the editor, and include contributions from Ray McGovern and Karen Kwiatkowski, whose work I have admired in the past. If there were one flaw in the book, but not so serious as to lose a star, it would be its isolation from the pioneering work done by Pierre Sprey, Chuck Spinney, and Winslow Wheeler, with a genuflection toward John Boyd, the real pioneer of smart sufficient national security.

What is uniquely valuable about this book, something I have not seen elsewhere, is its provision of a holistic examination not just of the military-industrial process and fraudulent, wasteful, abusive bad design, bad performance, and bad cost, but of the costs that the military-industrial complex imposes on all of us and our economy and our society. This is a world-class book that should be translated into other languages to help others avoid our long-running mistakes.

Here are the blinding flashes of solid insight that stayed with me and merit the broadest possible public understanding:

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