Month: December 2010

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Journal: Brooks on Assange, Others on Brooks

04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Privacy, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

EDIT of 5 Dec 2010 to add commentaries by various others.

David Brooks

Op-Ed Columnist

The Fragile Community

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 29, 2010

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had moved 37 times by the time he reached his 14th birthday. His mother didn’t enroll him in the local schools because, as Raffi Khatchadourian wrote in a New Yorker profile, she feared “that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy respect for authority.”

. . . . . . .

She needn’t have worried. As a young computer hacker, he formed a group called International Subversives. As an adult, he wrote “Conspiracy as Governance,” a pseudo-intellectual online diatribe. He talks of vast “patronage networks” that constrain the human spirit.

Far from respecting authority, Assange seems to be an old-fashioned anarchist who believes that all ruling institutions are corrupt and public pronouncements are lies.

Read the rest of this revealing assessment….

Phi Beta Iota: We like David Brooks.  He's less submissive than David Ignatius, less pretentious than Fareed Zakaria, and generally has something interesting to say.  In this piece, most revealingly, he displays his limitations to the fullest.  We are quite certain that David Brooks means well, but the depth of his naivete in this piece is nothing short of astonishing.  The below lists of lists of book reviews will suffice to demonstrate that David Brooks is not as well-read as he needs to be, not as intellectual as he pretends to be, and not at all accurate in his assessment of Julian Assange.  We share with Steven Aftergood of Federation of American Scientists (FAS) concerns about Assange's judgment in releasing some materials that are gratuitous invasions of rightful privacy, but we also believe that Assange is finding his groove, and the recent cover story in Forbes captures that essence.  WikiLeaks is an antidote to corporate fascism and elective Empire run amok.  It meets a need.

Other Commentaries on the Same Article:

Continue reading “Journal: Brooks on Assange, Others on Brooks”

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Journal: Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction All Lies?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Casting Light on “The Moment of Truth”

Where’s the evidence to back up the fear mongering? A challenge to the Fiscal Commission’s report.

James K. Galbraith

James K. Galbraith is General Editor of “Galbraith: The Affluent Society and Other Writings, 1952-1967,” just published by Library of America. He teaches at The University of Texas at Austin.

The report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, issued on December 1, 2010 by Chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is entitled “The Moment of Truth.” The words appear in block caps on the second page, weighty and portentous. They reappear in the first paragraph of the preamble:

EXTRACT:  These sentences set the tone. The first is a bald-faced lie, as a Westerner like Senator Simpson knows perfectly well. To the contrary, we have often fallen under the sway of robber barons, water barons, oil barons, bison-killers, clear-cutters and strip-miners, hell-bent on maximum pillage in the shortest time. Only occasionally have a few heroes like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and Harold Ickes Sr. emerged to battle for the most precious physical elements of our heritage — and then only with limited success.

EXTRACT:  Noticeably missing from the Commission’s plan are measures that would fall on the “leaders” themselves. The very richest pay cash for their houses. The commission would reduce, not increase, marginal income tax rates. There is no suggestion of a financial transactions tax.

EXTRACT: “…we spent the past eight months studying the same cold, hard facts. Together, we have reached these unavoidable conclusions. The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. And Washington must lead.”

The reference to “studying” is suggestive. Are there any studies? White papers? Background analyses? Normally, one might expect a commission to produce some. In this case, it did not. The Commission’s web site makes no mention of any such thing.

Read entire article.

Phi Beta Iota: The most important point in our view is that there are no studies to back up the hyperbole and the recommendations, at the same time that it is clear the deficit reductions are Of, By, and For Wall Street, not We the People.  The White House and Congress continue to offer the public theater of the most absurd kind, lacking in all substance and assuredly not in the public interest.

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Journal: WikiLeak’s Doomsday Files

Civil Society, IO Secrets, Peace Intelligence, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

If this report is accurate, Assange may have created a cyberwar war equivalent of the unbreakable “one time pad” — all Assange needs to do is post the key and doomsday bomb goes boom.  Perhaps the Pentagon ought to hire him to teach DoD how to wage the net centric warfare it loves to talk about.

WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant ‘Insurance' File if Shut Down

Published December 05, 2010

Sunday Times

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

Read the rest of the article….

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Review (Guest): The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity
Amazon Page

Robert Scheer

5.0 out of 5 stars The great American Stickup

September 8, 2010

In this book, “deregulation” is a four-letter word: a synonym for leaving the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. markets and the U.S. reputation wide open to greedy mindless homegrown plutocrats. In short, it is a synonym for leaving the nation vulnerable to conscienceless unpatriotic Wall Street thieves.

Here in easy to understand language, Robert Scheer has pealed back the layers that cover up the whole stinking mess that has become “stripped-down vulnerable deregulated America.” The method of robbery is basically a five-step political process: (1) “demagog” FDR and all existing regulations relentlessly as the enemy of free enterprise; (2) use paid lobbyist to help justify, tear-down and then rewrite new regulations; (3) use lobbyists' contributions to buy off the votes of key politicians in both parties to open up the laws for the impending thievery; (4) once legislation is passed, oversee the Wall Street financial casino with watchdogs that do not watch; and then (5) appoint members of the plutocracy who stand to gain the most, as facilitators and the palace guards of policy.

The present system of “high-level state sanctioned grand larceny” was designed and implemented, not by Ronald Reagan, or GW Bush, but by William Jefferson Clinton with the help of none other than the gang of four — Timothy Geitner, Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Lawrence Summers. However, the unsung hero of the grand heist, was Windy Lee Gramm, senator Phil Gramm's paramour and then wife, (who as a grad student was first his lover and then very quickly his wife). It was this “devious duo” that engineered the plans for the ultimate robbery of the American economic system.

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Journal: Obama Fiddles While America Burns

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Strategy
Couresty of PatriotFreedom.org

CORRECTED by source as probably fraudulent (created by a Congressional staffer to make his Member look smart).  Leaving this up to share the thought.

Babette E. Bensoussan “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” – Cicero – 55 BC Wonder if we will finally get it in 2011??

Phi Beta Iota: Babette is one of the top dozen commercial intelligence specialists in the English language.

Who’s Who in Public Intelligence: Babette Bensoussan

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Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Secrets, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policies, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost

People are more likely to lie, exaggerate and distort when they know they won’t be held accountable for what they said, and people like to say what their interlocutors want to hear, says Jordan Stancil.

Jordan Stancil

Jordan Stancil is a lecturer in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs of the University of Ottawa.

Phi Beta Iota: This is the single best overview of how secrecy supports corruption.  It is consistent with testimony to the Moynihan Commission on Secrecy and with Morton Halperin's findings in Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy in which one of the “rules of the game” was “Lie to the President if you can get away with it.”  Today, the “rule of the game” is “Lie to the public if you can get away with it for at least one election cycle.”  Newt Gingrich started the decline with his power and ambition, Dick Cheney peaked at 935 documented lies that Colin Powell allowed to stand unchallenged, and now Obama, with Bloomberg in the wings, are the anti-climax of secrecy as fraud Of, By, and For Wall Street.  America has become a cheating culture, an unthinking culture, far removed from the essence of a Republic.

Middle East Online

First Published: 2010-12-05

On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy

The more I think about the WikiLeaks episode, the less I know what to say about it. Unfortunately, too much commentary, right and left, has tried to inject certitude where ambivalence should be.

It is not clear whether the WikiLeaks disclosures will damage our national interest. During the few years I spent as a Foreign Service officer, in Jerusalem and Berlin, I produced and read a fair number of classified cables, and I understand the rather obvious point that diplomats might get more — and more sensitive — information when their contacts believe that what they say will remain secret. We have heard endless appeals to “common sense” about the need for secrecy on these grounds.

But common sense also tells us that people are more likely to lie, exaggerate and distort when they know they won’t be held accountable for what they said, and that people like to say what their interlocutors want to hear. The annals of diplomatic communication, indeed of all communication, are filled with evidence of this banal insight, which many people seem to have forgotten in their rush to defend government secrecy.

This is a permanent reference.  Read the rest below the line, followed by links.

Continue reading “Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse”