Reference: How the Oligarchs Took America

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

How the Oligarchs Took America

— Beverly & Pack/Flickr

Creating a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

— By Andy Kroll

There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington's bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It's a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio and over the Internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors. It's a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.

Read the full article…..

Phi Beta Iota: A detailed and devastating article that recommends the book, Winner-Take-All Politics, and places the beginning of today's economic divide with President Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan. We place it further back, in the 1920's, when Carnegie and Rockefeller structured the role school system and also oversaw the destruction of all public transportation systems they could buy and then liquidate. It provides details on the specific organizations and their leading lights unleashed by the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court, and decision that in our view should suggest the need to first fire Congress and then pass legislation overturning all Supreme Court decisions permitting corporate “personality” and its requisite privileges that could be reserved for individual citizens.

2010/12/03

Review (Guest): Failure of Intelligence–The Decline and Fall of the CIA

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

cover failure of intelligence — Amazon Page

Mel Goodman

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Love for CIA, March 6, 2008<

Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

This is an astonishingly well balanced book that while deeply critical of CIA and its senior management also credits its strengths and successes. The author, Melvin Goodman, spent some 34 years as an analyst within the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of CIA. His principal criticism is that CIA directors in collusion with the executive branch have routinely politicized not merely intelligence products, but the very processes of research and analysis basic to intelligence production. He further argues that most intelligence `failures' can be traced to the practice of far too many at CIA to distort the intelligence process to support policy decisions and even to suppress sound, contrary intelligence. He also sees the growing `militarization' of the U.S. Intelligence System as further evidence that the Intelligence Community (IC) is moving from producing objective and accurate intelligence to producing intelligence that supports the ideologies and prejudices of its masters.

Goodman supports his argument with a remarkably detailed chronicle of CIA intelligence production over the last 35 years. This chronology emphasizes those instances where political pressure and the need to support a particular point of view took precedence over the need to produce accurate intelligence. Also, although he doesn't say so directly, he demonstrates the truth that intelligence is only as good as the system it serves. Unlike so many books on intelligence, this book actually identifies both the good guys and the bad .guys of CIA over the years. In particular he has a fascinating analysis of CIA Directors from Bill Casey (1980-1986) onward that is quite devastating. Although his principal target is the deleterious effect of the politicization and militarization of intelligence, he also effectively criticizes CIA's analytic and clandestine tradecraft.

This is an absolutely important critique of the course of CIA and by extension the entire U.S. Intelligence Community. However, given the controversial claims made by Goodman and the fact he actually names his heroes and villains, the reader might ask does he really know what he is talking about? In this reviewer's opinion, the answer is yes he does. Having been personally involved in a number of specific intelligence events that he chronicles, this reviewer would argue that Goodman has accurately described them. This is a book that ought to guide any effort to reform the U.S. Intelligence System.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2010/12/032010/12/03

Journal: CIA and the Culture of Corruption

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process

CIA and the Culture of Corruption

by: Melvin A. Goodman, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

CIA Deputy Executive Director John Brennan. (Photo: CSIS: Center for Strategic & International Studies / Flickr)

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a blistering report that documented a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001. The report provided a detailed study of the efforts of senior CIA leaders, including Deputy Director John McLaughlin and Deputy Executive Director John Brennan, to cover up the crime by stonewalling the White House, the Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the flaws of the interdiction program.

Brennan, who was President Obama's original choice to be CIA director until the report complicated the confirmation process, is currently the deputy director of the National Security Council (NSC).McLaughlin was the “villain” in the politicization of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay. Few people remember that it was McLaughlin who actually delivered the “slam-dunk” briefing to the president in January 2003. Nevertheless, the Obama administration named McLaughlin to lead the internal investigation of the CIA's intelligence failures in the attempted bombing of a commercial airliner and the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

The detailed report on Peru documents a culture of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of the CIA as well as the interventions of CIA lawyers to stop the DOJ from pursuing prosecutions in the case. The CIA office of general counsel's aggressive campaign to prevent a criminal prosecution of the agency officers culminated with Deputy Director McLaughlin's letter to the assistant attorney general that promised “significant disciplinary action” if CIA officers “lied or made knowingly misleading statements” to the Congress, DOJ, the NSC or office of inspectors general (OIG) investigators. The report carefully documents the lies and the stonewalling, but there was never any genuine punishment.

Read rest of this detailed article….

Melvin A. Goodman is national security and intelligence columnist for Truthout. He is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included service at the CIA, State Department, Defense Department and the US Army. His latest book is Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

See Also:

Journal: Mel Goodman on CIA Myths

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Lack Of)

and especially;

Continue reading “Journal: CIA and the Culture of Corruption”

2010/12/032010/12/03

Journal: Groupon’s Missed Opportunity

11 Society, About the Idea, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, IO Mapping, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process

Groupon's Missed Opportunity

The tech industry has a total crush on Groupon, that darling of the start-up scene that emails you huge discounts on everything from Gap jeans to gym memberships. Now that Google is about to acquire the Chicago-based start-up for billions of dollars, it’s like the tech blogs are all competing to see who can gush the most about how great Groupon is and how smart Google is for wanting to acquire them. It’s really not that big of a deal – how many times have we seen this kind of Cinderella story before?

Though I don’t find the acquisition all that interesting, I’m fascinated by the concept of Groupon, mainly for the incredible opportunity they missed. On the surface, Groupon seems to be about killer deals. They negotiate huge discounts with national and local businesses in exchange for the promise of thousands of new customers – pay $25 and get $50 worth of Thai food, for example, or pay $60 for a normally $250 dental exam. It’s a classic loss-leader tactic – gain new customers at a loss in hopes that they return and generate more business later.

When you take a closer look at Groupon’s phenomenal success, though, there’s a lot more going on than just bargains. Groupon was one of the first companies to successfully harness the power of group behavior across the social web in the name of a common purpose. That’s incredibly powerful! Think of the potential – for the first time in history, the physical barriers to collective, powerful action have been torn down, and Groupon figured out how to focus that power into a single, common goal. That’s huge!

Continue reading “Journal: Groupon's Missed Opportunity”

2010/12/032010/12/03

Worth a Look: The New Capitalist Manifesto

02 China, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Worth A Look

cover capitalist manifesto — Amazon Page

The Worst Trade in the World

It's often said that America's an uncompetitive economy–unable to produce stuff that satisfies global demand. Hence, a yawning current account deficit.

I'd say the reality's harsher. America's caught in a toxic, self-destructive relationship with the globe's second most significant economy. In short, it's making the worst trade in the world.

See tables of what US exports to China (good stuff) and what China exports back to the US (mostly bad stuff).

Amazon Pre-Publication (4 January 2011) Review:

Product Description

Welcome to the worst decade since the Great Depression. Trillions of dollars of financial assets and shareholder value destroyed; worldwide GDP stalled; new jobs vanishingly scarce. But this isn’t just a severe recession. It’s evidence that our economic institutions are obsolete—a set of ideas inherited from the industrial age that no longer work for business, people, society, or the future.

In The New Capitalist Manifesto, economic strategist Umair Haque argues that business as usual has outgrown the old paradigm of short-term growth, competition at all costs, adversarial strategy, and pushing costs onto future generations. These outworn assumptions are good for creating only “thin” value—gains that are largely illusory and produce diminishing returns every year.

For “thick” value—enduring, meaningful, sustainable advantage that deeply benefits the larger society—Haque details five new cornerstones of prosperity in the twenty-first century:

•Loss advantage: From value chains to value cycles
•Responsiveness: From value propositions to value conversations
•Resilience: From strategy to philosophy
•Creativity: From protecting a marketplace to completing a marketplace
•Difference: From goods to betters

The New Capitalist Manifesto makes a passionate, razor-sharp economic case that these methods will produce a more enduring prosperity for business as well as society.

About the Author

Umair Haque is the Director of the London-based Havas Media Lab and heads Bubblegeneration, a strategy lab that helps discover strategic innovation. He studies the economics of the future: the impact that new technologies, management innovations, and shifting consumer preferences will exert tomorrow on the industries and markets of today.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews of Capitalism Reincarnated

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on China

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Civilization-Building

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Collective Intelligence

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Common Wealth

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Conscious, Evolutionary, Integral Activism & Goodness

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dialog for Truth & Reconciliation

2010/12/032010/12/03

Reference: The Walk from “No” to “Yes” (William Ury)

Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence

William Ury

Finding the 18th camel….

15,000 tribes in touch with one another

The secret to peace is not easy, not new, but it is simple: We are the secret to peace, Us acting as a surrounding community.

The circle revisited…

The third side of any conflict is those not party to the conflict.

TEDX Presentation on Abraham's Walk (Unity & Respect)

William Ury is a mediator, writer and speaker, working with conflicts ranging from family feuds to boardroom battles to ethnic wars. He's the author of “Getting to Yes.” Full bio and more links

Tip of the Hat to John Steiner.

Phi Beta Iota: This is kum-ba-ya hand-holding at a world-class level. Utterly brilliant on the process, totally lacking on the facts and how to use them, pooling of resources and how to use them, etcetera.

2010/12/032010/12/03

Journal: Smoke, Mirrors, and Hades Burning on the Hill

Budgets & Funding, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Sounds Off....

This is a great example of the kind of gaming that keeps defense budgets high. Kudos to Winslow Wheeler for smoking it out.

On Dec 3, 2010, at 7:56 AM, Winslow Wheeler wrote:

In a midnight switch, the Deficit Commission changed the dividing line between discretionary spending elements. Was 050 (DOD,DOE, Misc.) versus the rest; now it's 050 plus VA, plus State, plus Homeland security versus the rest. The split remains 50-50 (I'm pretty sure); the total discretionary savings went up a bit, but now DOD is a lesser part of the “security” share of cuts, plus it gets to raid its new (trembling) partners in its deficit reduction cage. This was the idea not of the Republican defense apologists on the Commission but of the Democrat budget process “reformers” who were aping a long term goal to declare State a national security entity.

I bet the idea originated among the Pentagon milcrats, who fed to pliable democratic apparatchiks working for Gates, who in turn fed it to so-called democratic budget “reformers” on hill, on the commission, and/or in pro-dem thinktanks. Be interesting to see if/how Pentagon's wholly owned subsidiaries at the Post and NYT play this.

It is almost as if Frank Carlucci was back in the Pentagon and it is 1981 … remember how Carlucci snookered David Stockman (Reagan's OMB director) in early 1981 into approving even higher defense budgets than Reagan campaigned for (I wrote about Carlucci's “nature” trick on pages 14-17 of Defense Power Games – also attached).

Chuck

Phi Beta Iota: Given integrity of intent and process on the Hill, neither of which exists today, this would actually be a good change, with the proviso that Commerce be added and Newt Gingrich be made Vice President for Global Engagement, as we propose in our Virtual Cabinet at The Huffington Post. The misrepresentation of the defense budget has long been fraudulent (completely apart from the missing $2.3 trillion that DoD still cannot account for and never will), with externalized personnel and health costs not “visible” to most. Getting a grip on the US budget process is not rocket science. It requires just two elements: integrity in those at the top, and the enlistment of the public through the promised but not yet delivered transparency of process.