The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Fear is the primal motivator. Hate is fear turned into blame. Blame chooses a target. The target becomes the scapegoat. And the scapegoat is punished for everything that was ever wrong with the entire universe, whether it's their fault or not.
And on a more positive note, free online book:
Some important connections drawn between aid, corruption, and positive change; and also important omissions — conflicts out of the news where paying attention could make a difference.
Singling Out Forgotten Conflicts
The ISN Blog, 15 March 2012
A popular method for identifying which conflicts necessitate more attention from the international community is to estimate the difference between supply and demand of humanitarian assistance in these conflicts. Supply and demand, however, are very hard to measure in emergencies. This has led to the development of several indicators used to measure ‘forgotten conflicts’.
These indicators are often applied on an annual basis and are intended to generate media attention (to increase donations) and/or support donor operations (to comply with impartiality). Have these efforts been successful? Have they effectively singled out and buttressed forgotten conflicts? Looking back on the past decade, in this blog post I’ll assess which conflicts received the least (and most) attention from international actors.
Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Humanitarian Aid & Forgotten Conflicts”
Real-Name Registration Threatens the Lively World of China’s Microblogs
WIRED.com, 15 March 2012
The timeline on Sina Weibo, China’s popular Twitter-like service, is filled with pithy comments about “Beijing Fashion Week,” chronicling the comings and goings and sartorial choices of the elite.
But the commenters aren’t fashionistas, and they aren’t talking about supermodels or design stars. They are referring, in not-so-secret code, to Communist Party officials.
“Beijing Fashion Week” is a thinly veiled, sarcastic commentary on the Communist Party’s annual summit, now under way in the nation’s capital. And many of the assembled are making it easy to be ridiculed by showing up in luxury garb — a far cry from the staid image they aspire to project.
. . . . . .
And all this may change in the face of a new, more stringent policy designed to clamp down on free expression where other methods have been less successful. In a move to exert greater control on citizen speech online, the government is requiring that Sina Weibo and China’s other microblogs register the real names and identification cards of users in several cities. Those who do not register this week in many major cities like Beijing will not be allowed to share or forward posts; after a period of testing, the policy will go into effect nationwide.
GWU-OSA 10 Slides 1.6 Leadership Briefing Words in Notes Format
GWU-OSA 36 Slides 1.4 General Briefing Words in Notes Format
See Also:
GWU Provost Strategic Questions – A Globalization with Answers from Robert Steele
GWU Provost Strategic Questions – B Governance and Policy with Answers from Robert Steele
GWU Provost Strategic Questions – D Citizenship and Leadership with Answers from Robert Steele
Department of State Et Al Real Estate – Printable Single Slide 2.0
The Book:
One of the ironies of the rise of the so-called information age is that the information content of the mainstream media has plummeted, while its practice of yellow journalism in the interest of warmongering has skyrocketed. From the Arab-Israeli conflict to the non coverage of the murderous effects of sanctions in Iraq in the 1990s, to the distorted coverage of the Balkan wars culminating in Kosovo, to the hysteria fueling of the second Iraq war, Aghanistan, Libya, Iran, and now Syria, with a few exceptions, the mainstream press has been complicit in hyping conflicts — usually in Islamic regions — via oversimplified reporting and reliance on biased sources as opposed to making searching inquiries into the nuances shaping these conflicts. These sound bytes of convenience and yellow journalism have overloaded and anesthetized critical faculties of the voting publics to such an extent that, today, the masses in the US and Europe (especially the UK) have become sheeplike in their passive acquiescence to perpetual war conducted in their name for alleged humanitarian reasons. [1]
The attached report in Counterpunch by Professor Afshin Mehrpouya explores how shoddy reporting is now fomenting the Syrian crisis, and in so doing, he places the murderous implications of twin phenomena of overload and anesthetization into sharp relief.
——————
How One-Sided Reporting is Facilitating Escalation
Six Ways the Media Has Misreported Syria
by AFSHIN MEHRPOUYA, Counterpunch, 14 March 2012
As in the case of Libya, from NY Times to Fox News, from Guardian to National Post and from Le Monde to Le Figaro, the Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian conflict has been mostly simplistic and black & white with a Hollywoodian good (opposition) and evil (Syrian government) story. The basic storyline reported is: “The dictatorial Syrian government is torturing and killing Syrian protestors and civilians including women and children and that the Western counties and the Arab League want to protect these Syrian civilians”. These outlets use any information that supports their stance regardless of its source and quality, and dismiss or ignore any information that brings it to question.
The bloody suppression of protestors by the Syrian government and also instability resulting from the armed insurgency aggravated by a complex set of foreign forces, each with its own set of vested interests, have resulted in significant suffering for the people of Syria. Western media’s unquestioning, consensual, biased and melodramatic coverage of the Syrian events risks moving this conflict to a full blown war with grave consequences for the Syrian people and the region.
Here are the six ways that the Western media, across the board, have been uncritical and misleading in their coverage of the Syrian conflict:
1. What do the majority of Syrians want?
2. Is the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the militarized insurgency representative of the Syrian opposition?
3. How many casualties and killed by whom?
4. Are the information sources unbiased and credible?
5. What are the interests of countries pushing for regime change and foreign intervention?
6. What are the “democratic credentials of the countries who want to take democracy to Syria?
One of the great economic myths is that markets are rational. Not a day passes without this myth being disproved scores of times, but the myth persists.
For example, today (March 14) Bank of America/Merrill Lynch reported that “yesterday US markets started the day off with a strong rally after the solid retail sales report. . . . tailwinds are helping boost global equity markets today.”
The “solid retail sales report” for February consists of 1% nominal gain. That is, the increase is not deflated by the month’s inflation rate, which will be released on March 16. In other words, if very much of the 1%nominal gain in retail sales is due to higher prices, the inflation adjusted gain will not be statistically significant. The “rational market” took off without waiting to find out whether the gain was real.
Moreover, as statistician John Williams has established, the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) understates inflation. If an honest measure of inflation was used, retail sales could be in negative territory.
The “rational market” loves deception as long as it provides an excuse for equities to rise. The Federal Reserve’s focus on “core inflation,” which does not include rising food and energy prices, allows Federal Reserve officials to maintain that the inflation rate remains below target. By pretending that there is no inflation, the Federal Reserve continues to support banks with near zero interest rates while depriving savers and retirees of interest income. With no income from savings, people are forced to consume their capital. Thus, the Federal Reserve’s policy makes bankers richer and the country poorer.
Meanwhile, those whose old age security is based on pensions are confronting insecurity. Many with private pensions were harmed by the financial crisis. Those dependent on Social Security and Medicare are finding that these programs are being blamed for budget deficits caused by multi-trillion dollar wars of choice. Those expecting pensions from state and local governments are finding that governments are unable to make good on underfunded pension benefits.
State and local governments counted on a growing economy and rising consumer incomes to provide the tax base to make good on underfunded pensions. These governments did not foresee that US corporations would destroy their tax base by moving manufacturing, engineering, IT, research and design jobs overseas. The absence of growth in real incomes for the vast majority of the people and the capture of productivity gains by capital at the expense of labor have added to the budget woes of most state and local governments.
John Rauh at Northwestern University estimates that the unfunded obligations of state and local governments amounts to $4,400,000,000,000, an amount that is within the ballpark of Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes’ estimate of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Money that could have saved Americans’ pensions instead was allocated to profits for armament corporations and to advance Israel’s territorial hegemony.
When the Occupy Wall Street movement says that Washington rules for the benefit of the 1%, OWS is not far off the mark.
Syria: The Syrian army seized Idlib and rebels, activist Noureddin al-Abdo said on 14 March. Al-Abdo said fighting stopped on the night of 13 March, the Free Syrian Army has withdrawn and regime forces are performing house-to-house searches. News reports also reported the start of another army sweep operation in Dara'a, at the opposite end of Syria from Idlib.
Comment: Once again the location of this action provides insight into the threat to the al Asad regime. Idlib is near the border with Turkey. As long as army units are operating on the borders, the government is not threatened.
In this instance, the quick sweeps in Idlib after the success in Homs reinforce the judgment that the army remains effective and responsive to the government.
The opposition rout from Idlib was accompanied by two more senior defections from the opposition's leadership council because of its disorganization and authoritarian management practices. Several news accounts described the opposition as now in disarray.
For the opposition, possibly the only positive lesson from the recent operations is that the Syrian army's logistics system looks limited. It appears unable to support more than one major push at a time. The army seems to have no shortage of effective leaders and combat forces, but the logistics system appears one dimensional. Nevertheless, the opposition demonstrates no capability to take advantage of this army vulnerability.
Syria-Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia closed its Damascus embassy and withdrew its diplomats on 14 March due to the current events in Syria, a Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said, the Saudi press agency reported.
Comment: This action is further evidence that the fighting in Syria is primarily a proxy fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
See Also:
