The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Following is self explanatory. About all I can add is:
– “The West wasn't won with a registered gun.”
– As Charlton Heston said, “… from my cold, dead hand …”
– “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”
– “Don't dry fire in a gunfight.”
– “I am the NRA — and I vote!”
Click on Image to Upload
Eleven Other Images Below the Line
Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant]
Many people in the United States purchase one or fewer books every year.
Many of those people have seen every single episode of American Idol. There is clearly a correlation here.
Access to knowledge, for the first time in history, is largely unimpeded for the middle class. Without effort or expense, it's possible to become informed if you choose. For less than your cable TV bill, you can buy and read an important book every week. Share the buying with six friends and it costs far less than coffee.
Or you can watch TV.
The thing is, watching TV has its benefits. It excuses you from the responsibility of having an informed opinion about things that matter. It gives you shallow opinions or false ‘facts' that you can easily parrot to others that watch what you watch. It rarely unsettles our carefully self-induced calm and isolation from the world.
I got a note from someone the other day, in which she made it clear that she doesn't read non-fiction books or blogs related to her industry. And she seemed proud of this.
I was roped into an argument with someone who was sure that ear candling was a useful treatment. Had he read any medical articles on the topic? No. But he knew. Or said he did.
You see a lot of ostensibly smart people in airports, and it always surprises me how few of them use this downtime to actually become more informed. It's clearly a deliberate act–in our infoculture, it takes work not to expose yourself to interesting ideas, facts, news and points of view. Hal Varian at Google reports that the average person online spends seventy seconds a day reading online news. Ouch.
Not all books are correct or useful. Not all accepted science is correct. The conventional wisdom might just be wrong. But ignoring all of it because the truth is now fashionably situational and in the eye of the beholder is a lame alternative.
I know this rant is nothing new. In fact, people have been complaining about widespread willful ignorance since Brutus or Caesar or whoever invented the salad… the difference now is this: more people than ever are creators. More people than ever go to work to use their minds, not just their hands. And more people than ever have a platform to share their point of view. I think that raises the bar for our understanding of how the world works.
Let's assert for the moment that you get paid to create, manipulate or spread ideas. That you don't get paid to lift bricks or hammer steel. If you're in the idea business, what's going to improve your career, get you a better job, more respect or a happier day? Forgive me for suggesting (to those not curious enough to read this blog and others) that it might be reading blogs, books or even watching TED talks.
As for the deliberately uninformed, we can ignore them or we can reach out to them and hopefully start a pattern of people thinking for themselves…
Phi Beta Iota: One of the reasons we published 1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information was our early emerging sense that US “intelligence” did not know what the Nation needed to know, and neither did the Nation (in the Stephen Colbert sense of word: “Nation, you are stupid!”). America is at a turning point in which most of the foundation jobs have been exported and the menial jobs given over, deliberately, to illegal aliens; the schools have hit bottom, the government is out of control, and Wall Street, while in charge, has looted the Treasury and imploded the economy. The federal government mutters darkly about “federalizing” state and local police and “disarming” the public. What we really need–Thomas Jefferson understood this–is a fully armed, fully educated public that is attentive to its civic duty and will not tolerate corruption among its officials. This is going to be a long struggle. The good news: Obama activated the Davies J-Curve. America expected him to make positive change, he did not, now the myth is exposed. States (we are the United STATES of America) are finally starting to exercise their Constitutional authority to see to their own defenses, and a MAJORITY of the voting public now sees the two-party tyranny for what it is: a corrupt cesspool….one bird, two wings, same shit.
The “Pledge to America” is largely hyperbolic hypocritical crap.
Prefaces (Steele, Sanders, Atlee, Hartmann, Seagraves)
Election 2008 Chapter: The Substance of Governance
Election 2008 Chapter: Legitimate Grievances
Election 2008 Chapter: Candidates on the Issues
Election 2008: Balanced Budget 101
November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could
potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever
seen.
At the FCC’s November meeting – note the coincidental date of choice,
AFTER the impending election – three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could
simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy – the
information and technology sector.
Meaning the Internet that you currently enjoy – that has been a marvel of
economic and information innovation and success – will be subject to vast
new governmental regulations. You didn’t elect these people – but they
are on the verge of electing themselves Internet overlords.
by Seton Motley
November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever seen.
After two years of this Presidential Administration and this Congress, that is saying an awful lot about an awful lot.
And what’s worse, the FCC would be doing it without Congress weighing in. At the FCC’s November meeting – note the coincidental date of choice, AFTER the impending election – three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy – the information and technology sector.
See Also:
From Fire Dog Lake No Logo Available
By: Nancy Bordier Friday October 15, 2010 2:25 pm
Eleven-Page 1997-2003 Paginated Word Document of Entire Piece
Thomas Friedman wrote in a recent New York Times article, “Third Party Rising“, that he is “astounded” by the level of disgust with Washington D.C. and the two party system he has found among industry leaders in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. He says he knows of “at least two serious groups” on the East and West coasts “’developing third parties’ to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.”
He predicts that “barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties, there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012, with a serious political movement behind him or her one definitely big enough to impact the election’s outcome”.
Friedman cites the harsh indictment of the two major parties by Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond: “We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country”. Diamond published similar views back in 2008 in a Huffington Post article, Can American Democracy Recover? He cited “a broad and deepening sense among Americans not only that the country is moving in the wrong direction, but that there is something seriously wrong and corrupt with our democracy”. He provides the following specifics:
Phi Beta Iota: We learned this when we went across America for the American Committee on Foreign Relations (ACFR) in the years following 9/11 delivering our lecture, “9/11, U.S. Intelligence, and the Real World.” Americans are not stupid–mainstream media personalities like Friedman are not stupid either, just oblivious. They live in their own world with the Kissingers and CNN faces so bent on being polite they cannot muster a tough question or get a grip on the whole. As we said years ago, Washington may not be interested in reality but reality is assuredly interested in Washington. It's game time.
Reference: Diversity of Voices & Values
Reference: Citizenship Versus Transpartisanship
Reference: Cyber-Intelligence–Restore the Republic Of, By, and For…
Harnessing Collective Intelligence to Save Democracy
Safety copy below the line.
Continue reading “Reference: Best Piece on Democracy in a Decade”
Marijuana in California: Prop. 19 won't stop federal drug enforcement
Even if voters pass Proposition 19 on Nov. 2, which would legalize use of marijuana in California, the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal drug laws there, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday.
Phi Beta Iota: States have the right to secede from the Union–they also have the right to nullify federal regulations within the state. Over in Virginia, suit has been filed against the mandatory purchase of health insurance. What we are seeing is the coming end to both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Empire. The federal government is supposed to be a service of common concern to the United STATES of America, but over time, the “top two” parties have conspired to exclude the other 63 parties and their members from both politics and governance, and to exclude the Governors and state from governance. The world is changing. The spectacle of an Attorney General who is obviously loosely-educated and has no clue that he is a servant of the people, not their master, more or less sums up the state of the federal government…..dead in the water and sinking fast. IOHO.
ALERT READER observes:
Thanks, also a note to your posting on States rights….look what is happening in the foreclosure world, 49 States are now looking into the legal issues while the feds say there is nothing wrong….
See Also:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Leadership for Epoch B
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Self-Determination & Secession
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Diversity of Voices & Values (USA)
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Disinformation, Other Information Pathologies, & Repression
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit
The Challenge of Power (Extract)
There are virtually always political barriers!
What I have found to be true is that when the issue faced is more important than their position, people in power positions will engage. In other words, they’ll step up when:
Essentially, these are the conditions when anyone will engage. It’s just that people with more to lose tend to wait longer. By then, the situation is really messy and they’re desperate.
Peggy Holman knows a lot about change in organizations and communities and she wrote Engaging Emergence to help people not only deal with unexpected and chaotic change, but even come out ahead by engaging it proactively.
But proactive engagement means letting go of some things just as much as discovering new things. To help you navigate, Peggy presents her list of The Five Things We Need To Let Go Of To Effectively Deal With Emergence:
1. Give Up Command and Control.
2. Give Up Habit and Routine.
3. Give Up Top-Down Decision-Making.
4. Give Up the Existing Order.
5. Give Up Thinking That You Have the Answers.
Read the full blog with paragraphs and examples for each of the above….
Worth a Look: Engaging Emergence
Journal: Self-Organizing Emergence from Chaos
