Reference: Legitimate Grievances by Robert Steele

Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Augmented Reality, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Strategy, Threats

As we all observe with stunning detachment the symbiotic continuance of Bush-Obama Democratic-Republican support to the Wall Street looting of America led by Goldman Sachs, whose executives continue to “own” the Department of the Treasury and the Bank of New York (Federal Reserve), I believe it helpful to itemize some legitimate grievances that could inspire State by State nullification of federal mandates and regulations, and perhaps a few secessions, with Cascadia, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska being well positioned to abandon a compact that no longer serves the United STATES of America, nor We the People.

I am indebted to Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale and founder of the Middlebury Institute, for teaching me about the urgency and relevance of the secessionist movements, and the detailed reflections that they have published, reflections that I point to here for the common good.

LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Domestic)

The Chattanooga Declaration of 2007 (7 Points)

Core Point:  Liberty can only survive if political power is returned from the banks and corporations that have corrupted the federal government, to local communities and States.  The American Empire is no longer a nation or a republic, but has become a tyrant aggressive abroad and despotic at home.

The Burlington Declaration of 2006 (5 points)

Core Point: Any political entity has the right to separate itself from a larger body of which it is a part and peaceably to establish its independence as a free and legitimate state in the eyes of  the world.  Governments are instituted among peoples, deriving their just powers power from the consent of the governed, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the legitimate goals of life, liberty, prosperity, and self-determination, it is the right of the people in democratic fashion to aleter or abolish it, and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The Logic of Secession: Three Tines to a Trident (A Manifesto by Kirkpatrick Sale)

Core Point: In the face of a rigged game in which two parties have conspired to corrupt, manipulate, and generally monopolize power, third party politics will not work.  Only secession will allow for the emergence of a restored Republic once the federal government and its two-party tyranny are made irrelevant (and starved of revenue).

In Defense of Vermont's Secession from the Union (A Manifesto by Keith Brunner)

Core Point:  Vermont was its own country before it joined the Union, and nothing in the Constitution of the United STATES of America precludes secession from this voluntary compact [Lincoln violated the Constitution in multiple ways, most Americans simply have not learned the truth of the matter].  The American Empire is economically, politically, cultural, and especially environmentally unsustainable, and far from fixing itself, is just getting worse.  When a government of people who have no moral authority are in the possession of enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, in the position to dominate the global economy for their own interests, and continually and foolishly pace the needs of the “economic system” above the needs of the natural world, the time for action cannot be put off any longer.

LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Anti-Americanism)

In sound support of the above, I have itemized a list of the behaviors and conditions that have inspired anti-Americanism.  Each is, without exception, a betrayal of the public trust and grounds for abolishing the present political criminal enterprise that has hijacked the federal government and the public treasury on behalf of its banking and corporate masters.   Each of these high crimes and misdemeanors justifying impeachment is derived from one or more works on non-fiction.

Reference: WikiLeaks and Al Qaeda as Open Source Insurgencies

10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Journal: The Security and Secrecy “Tax” – Global Guerrillas

By John Robb at Global Guerrillas (Networked tribes, systems disruption, and the emerging bazaar of violence. Resilient Communities, decentralized platforms, and self-organizing futures)

Wikileaks and Al Qaeda's Open Source Jihad are both open source insurgencies. While there are obvious differences between the two, what's more interesting is how they are similar. Namely: as open source insurgencies both groups use systems disruption (the ability…

Tip of the Hat to Mario Profaca at Facebook.

Phi Beta Iota: The deeper interpretation of the similarity of Al Qaeda and WikiLeaks is that they are both finding huge audiences for what they are offering, and they are both playing off of a massive public distaste for Open Veins of Latin America, Killing HopeRule by Secrecy, Sorrows of Empire, Web of Deceit, The Fifty Year Wound, etc.  The USA has created its enemies because of its hubris and the corruption inherent in how it has supported dictators and predatory immoral capitalism, imposing virtual colonialism and unilateral militarism, all without regard to either the rights of the indigenous parties treated as “collateral damage” or the interests of the American citizen-voter-taxpayer whose blood, treasure, and spirit have been consumed by an elite class that comprises an “Other Atrocity” on a global scale.  It troubles us that there is no one in the Administration with the intellectual breadth of mind and the intestinal fortitude to point out to President Barack Obama that he has a game-changing choice in front of him.  We (the 800 contributors, 80 active, 8 frequent) of Phi Beta Iota have always been open, honest, and loyal–these insurgencies are occurring because the US Government failed to heed the early warnings that began in the 1970's and reached a crecsendo in the 1990's.  There is still time for Barack Obama to Change the Game!

See Also:

Legitimate Grievances Part I (Domestic versus US Government)

Legitimate Grievances Part II (Global versus US Government)

Reference: No Labels “Non-Party” = “Four More Years” for Wall Street

Reference: Crash Course on Reality

Journal: Taliban Laughing–the Clowns Dance On…

Journal: Debt, Defense, and the Diem Moment in AF

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Elite Rule

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

Reference: Wall Street Does NOT Produce Value

Blog Wisdom
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Attached is a first rate essay that should be studied carefully.  Chuck

ANNALS OF ECONOMICS

WHAT GOOD IS WALL STREET?

Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless.

by John Cassidy, New Yorker

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

For years, the most profitable industry in America has been one that doesn’t design, build, or sell a single tangible thing.

. . . . . .

Most people on Wall Street, not surprisingly, believe that they earn their keep, but at least one influential financier vehemently disagrees: Paul Woolley, a seventy-one-year-old Englishman who has set up an institute at the London School of Economics called the Woolley Centre for the Study of Capital Market Dysfunctionality. “Why on earth should finance be the biggest and most highly paid industry when it’s just a utility, like sewage or gas?” Woolley said to me when I met with him in London. “It is like a cancer that is growing to infinite size, until it takes over the entire body.”
. . . . . .
Full Source Online

Perhaps the most shocking thing about recent events was not how rapidly the big Wall Street firms got into trouble but how quickly they returned to profitability and lavished big rewards on themselves. Last year, Goldman Sachs paid more than sixteen billion dollars in compensation, and Morgan Stanley paid out more than fourteen billion dollars. Neither came up with any spectacular new investments or produced anything of tangible value, which leads to the question: When it comes to pay, is there something unique about the financial industry?  [Answer: no, they are overpaid but not held accountable.]

. . . . . .

In 1940, a former Wall Street trader named Fred Schwed, Jr., wrote a charming little book titled “Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?,” in which he noted that many members of the public believed that Wall Street was inhabited primarily by “crooks and scoundrels, and very clever ones at that; that they sell for millions what they know is worthless; in short, that they are villains.” It was an extreme view, but public antagonism toward bankers and other financiers kept them in check for forty years. Economic historians refer to a period of “financial repression,” during which regulators and policymakers, reflecting public suspicion of Wall Street, restrained the growth of the banking sector. They placed limits on interest rates, prohibited deposit-taking institutions from issuing securities, and, by preventing financial institutions from merging with one another, kept most of them relatively small. During this period, major financial crises were conspicuously absent, while capital investment, productivity, and wages grew at rates that lifted tens of millions of working Americans into the middle class.

Since the early nineteen-eighties, by contrast, financial blowups have proliferated and living standards have stagnated. Is this coincidence? For a long time, economists and policymakers have accepted the financial industry’s appraisal of its own worth, ignoring the market failures and other pathologies that plague it. Even after all that has happened, there is a tendency in Congress and the White House to defer to Wall Street because what happens there, befuddling as it may be to outsiders, is essential to the country’s prosperity. Finally, dissidents like Paul Woolley are questioning this narrative. “There was a presumption that financial innovation is socially valuable,” Woolley said to me. “The first thing I discovered was that it wasn’t backed by any empirical evidence. There’s almost none.” ♦

Phi Beta Iota: The Republic has lost the art of seeing the Big Picture.  The failure of the US infected all other countries.  Failed states have risen from 25 or so to over 175, and the USA is now on the verge of becoming a failed state itself.

See Also:

Journal: Reflections on Integrity

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Bankruptcy of US Economy, Federal Reserve Malfeasance

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Blue Collar

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Class War (Global)

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate & Transnational Crime

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate Lack of Integrity or Intelligence or Both

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Elite Rule

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Middle Class

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poisons, Toxicity, Trash, & True Cost

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poverty

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on War Complex—War as a Racket

Reference: The Modern Big Picture–Two Minds

Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, History, InfoOps (IO), IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Real Time, Reform, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Extract from Conclusion in the Above:  I have observed the World Game as a student-participant, and wish it well. I have also observed Bob Pickus's work, as a student-participant in Turn Toward Peace, and wish him well. There are still other alternatives, but whichever road leads us faster into a world without war, what I gain most from Pickus and Fuller is their sense of the Big Picture. No one else can match their indefatigable and comprehensive efforts to see the problem whole, and to steer the world's energy into a grand design of peace.

See Also:

Who's Who in Collective Intelligence

Who's Who in Peace Intelligence

BigPictureSmallWorld

BigPicture Consulting

Design Science Lab

Global Education Lab

EarthGame

Reference: Bruce Schneier on Cyber War & Cyber Crime

Historic Contributions, IO Sense-Making, Movies
Berto Jongman Recommends...

YouTube 26 Minutes

In this address, Bruce examined the future of cyber war and cyber security.  Mr. Schneier explored the current debate on the threat of cyber war, asking whether or not the threat had been over-stated. He then explored the range of attacks that have taken place, including the Latvian DOS attack and the Stuxnet worm. The address concluded with an exploration of the future of international treaties on cyber war.

Phi Beta Iota: This is utterly brilliant stuff, a historical contribution.  A power struggle between military and police over cyber-security, in US military won–this has consequences.  The weak aspect is the proponency for treaties among states–states are but one of the eight tribes, any “treaty” environment that does not adapt to the reality of eight tribes and hybrid networks is not serious.

See Also:

2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam

1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security

1993 War and Peace in the Age of Information–Superintendent’s Guest Lecture, Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

Journal: Where Do Ideas Come From?

Blog Wisdom

Seth Godin Home

Where do ideas come from?

  1. Ideas don't come from watching television
  2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
  3. Ideas often come while reading a book
  4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
  5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
  6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
  7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
  8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner's mind. A little awareness is a good thing
  9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
  10. Ideas come from trouble
  11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they're generous and selfless
  12. Ideas come from nature
  13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
  14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
  15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we're asleep and too numb to be afraid
  16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we're not trying
  17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
  18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
  19. Ideas don't need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
  20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn't join us here, it's hidden. And hidden ideas don't ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

Reference: American Tragedy–Another Free Ride for Pentagon

Articles & Chapters, DoD, Media Reports
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

November 23, 2010

The Root Causes of the Defense Budget Mess

Another Free Ride for the Pentagon?

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

Counterpunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/spinney11232010.html

The Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission will be reporting out its results in early December. We can expect that it will focus on domestic spending, especially entitlements, including Social Security. By the time the dust settles, it is quite likely that the Pentagon — really the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex — will get a free ride for the reasons predicted by President Eisenhower in his farewell address.

Given the short attention span of the mainstream media, we can expect the Commission's recommendations will be examined as if they are current news, devoid of historical context. But the question of context — specifically, as it relates to how the spending behaviour of the US government managed to destabilize the improving trend in budget balances of the late 1990s (due in large part to the huge and growing surpluses of the Social Security Trust Fund in the 1990s as well as the effects of the economic expansion) — is central to any rational determination of whether the enactment of Simpson-Bowles' recommendations will make things better or worse. Given the gravity of our economic situation, this kind of omission would simply compound the ongoing American Tragedy.

Read the rest of this referential article, including historical and current referential links…

See Also:

Journal: Deficit Reduction Plan Hoses Everyone BUT the 10% at the Top

Reference: USA in Denial Over Reality

Journal: Who Dun It on the Deficit?

Reference: Saving Defense from Itself