The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
AWC SSI Monograph: Information Operations: Putting the “I” Back Into DIME (February 2006)
BOOK: 2006 INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time (2006)
Empathy slaps me silly sometimes, and the “joy of Christmas” can be elusive when you see any fraction of the real pain and suffering in the world. In Buddhism, “suffering” is a technical term that has meanings so deep that words don’t suffice, but the fact is that many people are disrupted and disappointed in ways that scale from trivial to tragic. In this solstice celebration with its Christian religious and spiritual resonance, we try to be festive, to celebrate the life of someone who would have been bemused if not horrified by the material orgy produced in his name, now so vital a part of our economic life that we couldn’t lose it, even if we wanted to.
My paternal grandmother died on Christmas Eve when my father was ten years old. He revealed this to me when I was around the same age, and I realized from then on that Christmas had a far different sense for him than it had for me. Each year at Christmas he was reminded of death, loss, sadness.
I’m aware of many trails of sadness through this year’s holiday season, disconnections and deaths, as well as ordinary frailties and broken promises. In fact the whole world seems to be trembling at the moment, and our future is a blur. Celebration, like nirvana, seems almost selfish at the moment; the bodhisattva path makes more sense. I will celebrate this year as ever, and appreciate those close to me, but I will also find time to mourn the many losses and disappointments, and the divisions that have emerged in my life and others.
I do hope you have a Merry Christmas, forget for a moment the difficult realities that confront us and surround us, take the day to focus on love and fellowship. Subvert the darkness.
O you, happy roots,
with whom works of miracles
and not works of crime,
for burning predestined you were planted.
And to you, thoughtful fiery voice,
becoming the whetstone,
subverting the darkness.
Rejoice in that which is on top.
Rejoice in him,
who the many did not see on earth,
although they ardently cried for.
Rejoice in that which is on top.
~ Hildegarde von Bingen, translation by Rupert Chappelle
So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young
~ John Lennon
2010 was an incredible year in terms of viral videos. The increased use of social media like Twitter and Tumblr has taken our meme consumption to ridiculous levels. There have been a lot of “best viral videos of the year” lists floating around lately, but we feel this compilation from Videogum does the best job curating all the crazy things we paid attention to this year. From “Double Dream Hands” to “Double Rainbow,” they've covered almost all the bases and did a great job editing them together in an entertaining way. Check it out and see Videogum for a list of all the honorees.
WATCH THE MIX (5 Minutes) (Click on Embedded at Huffington Post)
Re-Mixed Ingredients:
1. Double Dream Hands
2. Sesame Street “Whip My Hair” Mash-Up
3. Keenan Lipdubs “Whip My Hair”
4. Kids Dance to “Billie Jean” The Darndest Things
5. Parrot Dances to “Whip My Hair”
6. Kids Dance Provocatively to “Whip My Hair” The Darndest Things
7. BRODYQUEST
8. Stay Safe Online, You Guys
9. Two Corgis on a Treadmill
10. That’s Your DJ
11. Ghost Ride the Tractor
12. Dog Mowing the Lawn
13. Horse in the Car
14. Salsa Dog!
15. Villagers Dancing to Techno
16. Olsen Twins Nightmare
17. Man with Swastikas on His Head
18. Cougar Life
19. Pamela Gorman Campaign Ad
20. Candidate for Stark County Ohio Treasurer, Phil Davison
21. Basil Marceaux Dot Com
22. Glenn Beck for President
23. Tim James Campaign Ad
24. Dale Peterson Campaign Ad
25. Christine O’Donnell Campaign Ad
26. Carly Fiorina Campaign Ad
27. Sad Keanu Meme
28. Drunk Bus Lady Denise Crull News Report
29. “Back It Up” Lady Eye Witness News Report
30. Dude, You Have No Quaran
31. Antoine Dodson
32. “Bed Intruder Song”
33. “Bed Intruder Song” Christmas Carol
34. Little Girl Sings “Bed Intruder Song”
35. High School Band Plays “Bed Intruder Song”
36. Ginger Kid
37. Katherine Chloe Cahoon: Why Single Girls Want To Meet European Men
38. Colleen Thomas
39. Girl Has Trouble Hitting High Notes
40. Fainting Goat Kittens
41. Rolled-Up Newspaper Self-Defense
42. A Guided Tour of One Man’s VCR Collection
43. Iguana Farts in a Bathtub
44. Homeless Man Lipdubs David Bowie with Two Kermits
45. Awesome Dance Off in the Rain
46. Hand Model Ellen Sirot
47. The Worst Wedding DJ Ever
48. Kids Sing Lady Gaga in Their Underpants the Darndest Things
49. The Best Viral Video of 2010 (Man on Gurney, House on Fire)
50. Join the Race for the Cure for WHITE Breast Cancer
51. Self-Potato
52. Brendan Fraser Clap Remix
53. Trololololololo
54. Isaiah Mustafa
55. Girls Tripping Over Hurdles in Slow Motion to a Radiohead Song
56. Double Rainbow
57. You Dun Goofed up!
Phi Beta Iota: Penguin is a new Contributing Editor who is still learning the system and also undecided about having a bio, even a relatively anonymous one.
This Week on The Globalist
December 18-24, 2010
Middle Class and Globalization: A Big Power Comparison (Part I)
In this time of economic strife, which nation stands to lose the most compared to its own expectations, projected path and historic experiences? The Richter Scale takes a closer look.
Middle Class and Globalization: A Historical Perspective (Part II)
The Richter Scale explores whether the United States is finally getting serious about reinvigorating its middle class.
The Globalist's Top Ten Books of 2010
In this 2010 year-end special, we look back at the best new books featured on The Globalist Bookshelf this year.
The Globalist's Top Ten Features of 2010
As 2010 draws to a close, we present our selection of the most thought-provoking features published on The Globalist this year.
From the economic recession to the World Cup, how did 2010's major events look to the world's headline writers?
Published on Thursday, December 23, 2010 by In These Times
The ‘Repo-Demo’ Party’s Three Phase Austerity Plan for America
Get ready for more of the same failed “job creation” policies, enacted by an increasingly unified political eilte
by Jack Rasmus
The Bush tax cuts are now extended. What cost $3.4 trillion over the past decade, 80% of which accrued to the wealthiest households and U.S. corporations, will now cost another $802 billion over the next two years and a projected $4 trillion over the coming decade.
But the Bush tax cut extension just passed by a political elite increasingly united on economic policy—a ‘Repo-Demo’ Party dominated by corporate interests—is only the first of three phases in a new policy offensive designed to protect the incomes of the wealthy and corporate America for another decade, to be paid for directly by middle- and working-class America. Together, the three phases represent the emerging U.S. variant of a general austerity strategy, similar in objective but different in content to other austerity programs now emerging as well in the Eurozone, Japan and elsewhere.
Phase two: draconian spending cuts
Same wine in same bottles, with new label
The key question: Will any jobs be created?
Obama’s 2011 ‘Stimulus 2’ will thus prove no more effective than his 2009 ‘Stimulus 1.’ The past decade has produced repeated tax-cut heavy policies targeting the rich and corporations: Bush II and a Republican Congress 2001-06. Bush II and a Democratic Congress 2006-08. Obama and a Democratic Congress 2008-10. And now Obama and a de facto Republican Congress.
The recent Bush tax cut extensions show the corporate-dominated political elite of both parties are now closing ranks as the economic crisis continues with no resolution for all but the wealthy and corporations. The ‘Repo-Demo’ Party, newly aligned around the same old failed policies, has just begun to do its work. Get ready for more of the same.
Jack Rasmus is the author of Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression, published in May 2010 by Pluto Press, Palgrave-Macmillan.
Phi Beta Iota: In the 1990's Tim Hendrickson, at the time one of the best and the brightest at the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) conceptualized GRAND VIEW, a program to look at each couintry in holistic terms to determine a) what direction their science & technology was going in; and b) what their economy could afford in the way of military spending. This was before NGIC was caught fabricating the threat to justify the purchase of weapons and mobility systems that were unaffordable and not needed. We wonder what GRAND VIEW would say about the USA's future, and we wonder if the restoration of integrity within US intelligence might not have an immediate positive effect on personnel, training, concepts & doctrine, and acquisition.
GAO-11-99 December 17, 2010
A catastrophic public health event could threaten our national security and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties. Recognizing the need for efficient sharing of real-time information to help prevent devastating consequences of public health emergencies, Congress included in the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act in December 2006 a mandate for the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in collaboration with state, local, and tribal public health officials, to develop and deliver to Congress a strategic plan for the establishment and evaluation of an electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability. Pursuant to requirements of the act, GAO reviewed HHS's plans for and status of efforts to implement these capabilities, described collaborative efforts to establish a network, and determined grants authorized by the act and awarded to public health entities. GAO assessed relevant strategic planning documents and interviewed HHS officials and public health stakeholders.
HHS did not develop and deliver to congressional committees a strategic plan that demonstrated the steps to be taken toward the establishment and evaluation of an electronic public health situational awareness network, as required by PAHPA. While multiple offices within HHS have developed related strategies that could contribute to a comprehensive strategic plan for an electronic public health information network to enhance situational awareness, these strategies were not developed for this purpose. Instead, the offices developed the strategies to address their specific goals, objectives, and priorities and to meet requirements of executive and statutory authorities that mandated the development of strategies for nationwide health information exchange, coordinated biosurveillance, and health security. However, HHS has not defined a comprehensive strategic plan that identifies goals, objectives, activities, and priorities and that integrates related strategies to achieve the unified electronic nationwide situational awareness capability required by PAHPA. The department has developed and implemented information technology systems intended to enable electronic information sharing to support early detection of and response to public health emergencies; however, these systems were not developed as part of a comprehensive, coordinated strategic plan as required by PAHPA. Instead, they were developed to support ongoing public health activities over the past decade, such as disease and syndromic surveillance. Without the guidance and direction that would be provided by an overall strategic plan that defines requirements for establishing and evaluating the capabilities of existing and planned information systems, HHS cannot be assured that its resources are being effectively used to develop and implement systems that are able to collect, analyze, and share the information needed to fulfill requirements for an electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability.
Read recommendations, access full report…
Long comment and recommended historical warnings and prescriptions below the line.
PART I: The Only Way to Fix the Deficit–Multiply Jobs (William Drayton)
PART II: Nice Ideas But So Is Icing Cover Feces (Robert Steele)
PART III: Create Jobs? As an End In Themselves? To Do What? Why? (Alexander Carpenter)
PART IV: Related Recommended Reading (Robert Steele)
The core take-away (from PART III)
Beyond its inherent merit and explicit substance, William Drayton: The Only Way to Fix the Deficit: Multiply Jobs is a great example of unconscious status-seeking righteousness – well-meaning ineptitude and irrelevance, trapped in the old paradigm of debt-money, growth, and social conditioning. This kind of thinking is exemplary of people who are focused on the superficial “economic crisis,” not going deeper to see that we have a political (and even a social) crisis with, of course, an economic manifestation. This represents the success of the pseudo-science of “economics,” originally created with the intention to get most people to believe that objective “natural” forces are running their lives, not other people, classes, and institutions (Thurmond Arnold, 1937). Good problem-solvers always begin with as much accurate information about the overall problem as possible. It's incompetent – or unconscious self-deception – to assume human nature isn't the core and essence of the problem, and Bill Drayton isn't necessarily incompetent…
Perspective (from PART III Reference):
“By providing the funding and the policy framework to many concerned and dedicated people working within the non-profit sector, the ruling class is able to co-opt leadership from grassroots communities, … and is able to make the funding, accounting, and evaluation components of the work so time consuming and onerous that social justice work is virtually impossible under these conditions” (Paul Kivel, You Call this Democracy, Who Benefits, Who Pays and Who Really Decides, 2004, p. 122 )
Phi Beta Iota: In Advanced Information Operations (IO) terms, we cannot fix the military until we fix government, we cannot fix government until we fix Wall Street and Main Street, we cannot fix the economy until we fix the society, and all of that requires a firm focus on human nature and the relations among humans. We live is a “whole system” and are mis-managing it by being ignorant and delusional about root causes and actual relationships. Until we get the truth on the table, we cannot deal with it. Good news: all it takes is ONE node able to blend intelligence & integrity, that “spike” will proliferate. The bottom line is that DEMAND creates jobs, and EDUCATION creates the demand for the RIGHT jobs. Taking one example, the US Army, it could apply Advanced Information Operations to create a 180 degree maturation of the mind-set of its personnel, and use that to “eat the old” and create the new. The US Army is going to suffer a nose dive in financial resources (as will the other services); the US Army is the ONLY service that must might be capable of “beating the dive” by re-inventing itself from inside out–starting with Advanced IO being about minds, not technology. Similarly, a single multinational could “get a grip” and re-invent itself overnight–the example will proliferate.
Continue reading “Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation”
