Month: November 2011

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Berto Jongman: Criteria for Identifying Classic Reads

04 Education, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

What Can Plato Teach Me That I Can't Find on Wikipedia?

What's the Big Idea?

David Honan

BigThink, 20 November 2011

Do we really need to read the classics in the age of Wikipedia? Aren't these books just historical artifacts or a bunch of pretentious fodder for cocktail party conversation? According to Jeffrey Brenzel, Philosopher and Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, the classics will not only enhance your education, but help you live better.

So how do we decide which books qualify? This is, after all, one of the most controversial subjects in academia. In his Floating University lecture Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Essential Value of a Classic Education, Brenzel presents five “rough and ready criteria” for identifying a classic of literature or philosophy or politics. While Brenzel notes that no one or two of these criteria are going to be decisive, he presents them all together as a useful tool. He lists the criteria as follows:

1. A classic addresses permanent concerns about the human condition.
“From a philosophical perspective it has something to say about the way we should live. From a literary perspective, it has something to say about imagining the possibilities for how we could live and from a historical perspective it tells us how we have lived.”

2. A classic has been a game-changer. 
“It has created profound shifts in perspective and not only for its earliest readers, but for all the readers who came later as well.”

3. A classic has stimulated or influenced many other important works.
The work has impacted other important works, either directly or indirectly.

4. A classic has received critical acclaim.
Even if they violently disagreed with the work, “many generations of the best readers and the most expert critics have rated the work highly” and one of the best or most important of its kind.

5. A classic requires strenuous intellectual engagement.
Beach reading doesn't qualify. Brenzel says a classic usually requires “a strenuous effort to engage and understand, but it also rewards the hard work strongly and in multiple fashions.”

Watch video, learn more.

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David Swansson: When the World Outlawed War – A Model for Occupy to Achieve Electoral Reform Act of 2012

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Articles & Chapters, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
David Swanson

When the World Outlawed War: An Interview with David Swanson

For those who know war only through television, criminalizing it sounds like proposing to criminalize government. But there was a time when the masses made war illegal.
Bruce E. Levine
Alternet, November 21, 2011

David Swanson’s recently released book, When the World Outlawed War, tells the story of how the highly energized peace movement in the 1920s, supported by an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens from every level of society, was able to push politicians into something quite remarkable—the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. The 1920s “War Outlawry” movement in the United States was so popular that most politicians could not afford to oppose it.

Click on Image to Enlarge

David Swanson, since serving as press secretary in Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, has emerged as one of the leading anti-war activists in the United States. While Swanson has fought against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tried to alert Americans to the fact that U.S. military spending is the source of most of our economic problems, his anti-war activism goes much deeper. He wants to stigmatize militarist politicians as criminals. In his previous book War is a Lie, Swanson made the case for the abolition of war as an instrument of national policy, and When the World Outlawed War provides an historical example of just how powerful war abolitionism can be.

Bruce Levine: At a college lecture that you recently gave, you asked the students and professors if they believed war was illegal or if they had ever heard of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and only about 2 or 3 percent of a large group raised their hands. But what really seems to have disturbed you is when you asked if war should be illegal, and only 5 percent thought that it should be.

Full Text Below for Google Translate

Continue reading “David Swansson: When the World Outlawed War – A Model for Occupy to Achieve Electoral Reform Act of 2012”

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John Steiner: Barefoot College in India

03 India, 04 Education, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society
John Steiner

In Rajasthan, India, an extraordinary school teaches rural women and men —
many of them illiterate — to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and
doctors in their own villages (and it trains children). It's called the
Barefoot College, and its founder, Bunker Roy, explains how it works.

Please click here <http://www.sadroo.com/0089.php>  to watch the video

Tip of the Hat to Dennis Bumstead.

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Mini-Me: World Revolting Against US Economic Model [Full Text Online for Google Translate]

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies, Threats
Who? Mini-Me?

Open Letter at P2P Foundation

Dear friends and colleagues,

The world is riveting toward a possible turning point and we hope that you are able to stand with us in this call to action.

We, the undersigned, have co-authored the document noted below. We are now writing to seek your endorsement. Please if you wish to support our statement and are willing to stand in solidarity with us, then, by return of this email, add your name and affiliation to the signatories. As the current global crises have clearly shown, the whole world is waking up to the value of co-creation and harnessing of knowledge from diverse sources, disciplines, experience and expertise.

We plan to publicise this document widely and forward it to many relevant national and international agencies and bodies tasked with formulating new policies for a new type of world economy.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: World Revolting Against US Economic Model [Full Text Online for Google Translate]”

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Event: 10 December Occupy London: P2P for All

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies
Michel Bauwens

Introduction to P2P and the Commons as the new paradigm of change

When: Sat, December 10, 10am – 11am

To succeed in social change, I believe we need 3 things.

* a genuine mass movement. As the first native movement and great hope of the digital age that is what #ows is all about.

* concrete alternatives that can change our lives and allow us to live our values right now. This is what commons-based peer production provides – a new way of producing value.

* the ability to be able to stop bad policies, and propose new ones that allow alternatives to survive and thrive, for which we need true democratic processes.

A ‘commons’ rather than ‘market state’ orientation is a fruitful way to think about solving humanity’s problems in a new way.

Michel Bauwens is founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives , a global collaborative researching peer production that maps the thousands of p2p projects being created to achieve mutual alignment and a growing counter economy that can co-exist and perhaps even supersede the today’s dysfunctional one. He is also a partner of the Commons Strategies Group which seeks to seed conversations around the new commons paradigm.

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Brief OWS Reflections

Uncategorized

Recent Communications Regarding Some Personal Occupied Wall Street Involvements

by Jason Liszkiewicz
November 26, 2011
(This is an edited email)

Corporation$ = Persons + Money = $peech is a commonly agreed upon absurdity from what I've witnessed.

“Electoral reform” is language that I think turns many people off and perhaps it's time for a makeover name-wise.  I've seen semantics become a problematic issue many times yet I've also seen that after speaking about ideas and actions beyond particular terms (and emotions), agreement could be found and a breakthrough achieved.  Overall, I don't think the world is interested in becoming an anarchists' “utopia” or any group's “utopia.”  I doubt it will ever happen effectively, but I think that anarchists and “reformists” need to come together.

In my opinion, human relations cannot be rushed when it comes to “building community” which I think is absolutely essential.  But the fact is that more people need to become involved in order for strength in numbers to reach critical mass which is a long ways away.  I see meetings where people never bring up outreach or working with multiple working groups as if the small amount of people who show up to meetings is enough for some sort of “revolution,” or that someone else is taking care of that need.  It is finally being discussed more online and in-person.  Patience and persistence is essential.

The memes and demonstrations of discontent are burning globally but the vision and strategy needed to fuel effective acceleration and spreading is questionable.

There are complexities with the General Assemblies and spokes-council that are frustrating (and lack of info being uploaded to nycga.net such as finance and past GA proposals) but I think the kinks can be worked out; it will take a lot of work + it's only been alittle over 2 months + winter creeping in.

Even Russell Simmons has proposed an amendment to the Constitution in Boston and L.A.  In my opinion, it should be looked upon as a sign of new opportunities towards new forms of collaboration and not an end.  Getting more people involved throughout the nation is important while figuring out how to effectively “crowd-source” and develop better  understanding about how to achieve “consensus.”

We must overcome the barriers of ignorance, poverty, and mistrust.

Also See: Dear Occupiers: A letter from anarchists

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Richard Wright: More on CIA’s Continuing Implosion

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Articles & Chapters, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Government, Methods & Process, Movies, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Richard Wright

26 November 2011

Robert,

Not surprisingly your feelings about CIA [Robert Steele: Iran Arrests Twelve CIA Agents] have been echoed by Bob Baer whose principal area of operations was the Levant. As in this ABC interview: Former CIA Agent: U.S. Has Lost Its Spy Mojo  [includes short video]

“But former senior CIA officer Robert Baer told ABC News this week that the loss of assets was more than a mere setback, and not an isolated incident but part of a disturbing pattern.

“When you lose your entire station, either in Tehran or Beirut, that's a catastrophe,” said Bob Baer, a legendary CIA agent whose Middle East exploits were fictionalized in the George Clooney film “Syriana.” Baer said the disaster was due in part to a new generation of agents that has forgotten, or never learned, the traditional methods of intelligence gathering.

  “They don't understand tradecraft,” Baer said. “And we have lost our touch in espionage.”” (Emphasis mine)

Continue reading “Richard Wright: More on CIA's Continuing Implosion”