Month: February 2011

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NIGHTWATCH Essay: Youth, Democracy, & the West

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

NightWatch Essay: Some time ago, David Goldman, purporting to channel Oswald Spengler for Asia Times Online, wrote a farsighted essay [And Spengler is…] that anticipated, predicted and warned that modern impulses in the youth of the Middle East would rise up against conservative institutions to assert a modern definition of being Arab, Berber, Turk, Persian as well as Muslim. He identified the cohorts under 25 as the driving force in these pan-regional impulses.

The events that began in December 2010 in Tunisia seem to have validated parts of Goldman's prophecy. He foresaw the struggle as one between modern educated youth and the conservative, sclerotic Islamic clerisy of mullahs and ayatollahs. In the essay, Spengler did not anticipate an intermediate phase in which the cohorts of modernization battled the stodgy pan Arab socialist authoritarian strong men.

Few prophets live long enough to see even part of their vision come to pass, as has Goldman's in 2011. However, the youth that started the pro-democracy movement lack the experience and shrewdness to plan well. Still, they have spoken the language of human rights, individual worth and elected, accountable government. The words should have been a rallying call to the Western democracies.

Those states that have the maturity and wisdom to help guide the Arab pro-democracy movement are the great western democracies, who else. But, the great democracies in North America and Europe have dithered. President Reagan's beacon on a hill has not shined its light on the Arabs.

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Design Principles for Survivable Networks

Autonomous Internet

 

Gordon Cook

As Milo points out to build survivable networks  we “should look to an Internet era architecture where you have multiple independent networks of different capabilities that inter-operate with each other because they are IP networks. “

That is the exact premise and design of the Greenstar network – which is the worlds first Internet network where all nodes are powered by renewable resources such as solar panels and windmills. Reliability and resiliency is maintained by having many diverse interconnected Internet networks rather than depending on highly resilient nodes.

Green IT/Broadband and Cyber-Infrastructure

See Also (as Cited)

Free Fiber and High Speed Internet to the Home Initiative

ICT and Global Warming – opportunities for innovation and economic growth

PROMPT Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming

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US Economy, US Federal Budget–To Cut or Not to Cut?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, IO Sense-Making, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

ECONOMIC SCENE

Why Budget Cuts Don’t Bring Prosperity

By DAVID LEONHARDT

New York Times, February 22, 2011

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Remember the German economic boom of 2010?

Germany’s economic growth surged in the middle of last year, causing commentators both there and here to proclaim that American stimulus had failed and German austerity had worked. Germany’s announced budget cuts, the commentators said, had given private companies enough confidence in the government to begin spending their own money again.

Well, it turns out the German boom didn’t last long. With its modest stimulus winding down, Germany’s growth slowed sharply late last year, and its economic output still has not recovered to its prerecession peak. Output in the United States — where the stimulus program has been bigger and longer lasting — has recovered. This country would now need to suffer through a double-dip recession for its gross domestic product to be in the same condition as Germany’s.  Read more….

Does The U.S. Really Have A Fiscal Crisis?

By Simon Johnson, The Baseline Scenario, 24 February 2011

The United States faces some serious medium-term fiscal issues, but by any standard measure it does not face an immediate fiscal crisis.  Overindebted countries typically have a hard time financing themselves when the world becomes riskier – yet turmoil in the Middle East is pushing down the interest rates on US government debt.  We are still seen as a safe haven.

Yet leading commentators and politicians today repeat the line “we’re broke” and argue there is no alternative other than immediate spending cuts at the national and state level.

Which view is correct?  And what does this tell us about where our political system is heading?  Read more….

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Army Runs PSYOP on US Senators….

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Secrets, Military
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Another blockbuster by Rolling Stone raises a basic question of just who the military views as the real enemy — the threat posed by the Taliban or the threat to its money flow posed by Congress and the American people.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, 23 February 2011

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as “information operations” at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.

“My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,” says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. “I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line.”

The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.

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