Phi Beta Iota: We've been anticipating this since first pointing at Haggle and FreeNet. This is the single greatest piece of news for the public in this era. What this means is the end of toll-booths and extortion in local to global communications; it means the end of government ignorance in trying to control spectrum–we are now in Open Spectrum time. For so many reasons, all centered on conscious revolution, evolutionary activism, holistic Darwinism, non-zero, and collective intelligence, this one bit of news changes everything.
BAGHDAD — An American soldier in Iraq who was arrested on charges of leaking a video of a deadly American helicopter attack here in 2007 has also been charged with downloading more than 150,000 highly classified diplomatic cables that could, if made public, reveal the inner workings of American embassies around the world, the military here announced Tuesday.
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
BAGHDAD — The military said Tuesday that it has charged an Army intelligence analyst in connection with the leak of a controversial video and the downloading and transfer of classified State Department cables, in a case that is likely to further deter would-be whistleblowers.
Click on headlines to read each full story.
Phi Beta Iota: PFC Manning swore an oath to defend the Constitutions, not the chain of command and not the secrecy of immoral, illegal, and unaffordable policies that are funded by the U.S. taxpayer and done “in our name” but not at all in our interest. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
His charge sheet rests on “discrediting the Armed Forces” which is laughable–it is the behavior of our leaders that is a discredit to all of America; and on subverting “good order and discipline.” His behavior in revealing the webs of deceit and incompetence that characterize our military, our “diplomats,” and our spies is precisely what America needs in order to re-establish good order and discipline in harmony with our Constitution.
America needs MORE leaks, MORE “misbehavior,” because we now suffer a “system” that is so far removed from the Founding Fathers' vision, and so deeply divorced from the principles enshrined in our Constitution, that we must, without question, consider PFC Manning to be a “just man” whose best place in a time of injustice is to be in jail as an example to us all. BRAVO ZULU for courage and intelligence in the face of the enemy–he is us. If the lawyer for the defense has any integrity at all, this will be a public jury trial and the PFC will walk free, as he should. It's time to trash this pathological system and get back to the basics of freedom and a foreign policy of commerce and peace.
Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.
Resistance also served as part of Thoreau's metaphor which compared the government to a machine, and said that when the machine was working injustice it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be “a counter friction” (i.e., a resistance) “to stop the machine”.
Millennium Project / State of the Future web portal
Where We Are Winning – Where We Are Losing:
Futurologists Publish Annual Report on Major World Problems and Opportunities
Berlin 7th July 2010 – Can civilization implement solutions fast enough to keep ahead of the looming challenges? The Millennium Project, a global independent think tank of futurologists, and thought leaders, today published its 14th report on global perspectives in Germany and around the world. Until two years ago the report showed a positive trend in the so-called “State of the Future Index” (SOFI). Triggered by the financial and economic crises and the failure of the climate conference in Copenhagen, the current SOFI shows that the prospects of success in solving some major global challenges have become somewhat clouded.
What the authors see as lacking the most, according to Jerome Glenn,
Director of the Millennium Project, are a serried of serious global
strategies to be implemented by governments, companies, NGOs, UN
institutions and other international bodies.” The world is in a race between
implementing ever-increasing ways to improve the human condition and the
seemingly ever-increasing complexity and scale of global problems. After 14
years of research into the future within the framework of the Millennium
Project it is increasingly clear that the world has the necessary capacity
to cope with its problems. However, it remains unclear whether humankind
will make the right decisions on the scale necessary to meet the global
challenges appropriately”, said Glenn.
Among the regular sections in the ninety page ‘State of the Future' report
are the annually updated analyses of the fifteen key global challenges, as
well as the publication of the State of the Future Index (SOFI). The index
identifies areas in which there has been either an improvement or
deterioration during the past 20 years and creates projections for these
scenarios over the coming decade. All relevant and recognised studies by the
UN or World Bank are distilled as part of these projections.
On individual results of the State of the Future Index:
(COMMENT: If GEN McChrystal had had THIS poster displayed in his headquarters, then maybe there would have been some cause for Presidential concern….)
Same Bird Two Faces
Phi Beta Iota: Over 43% of the eligible voters in America are now self-described Independents, at the same time that our fraudulent and hijacked electoral process no longer qualifies the US as a “democracy” because none of the other 63 parties can gain ballot access and many states have rigged their entire process to block both write-in votes and third party challenges. The two photos below represent the death of democracy and the death of the Republic, a Republic that can only be revised with Electoral Reform. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by restoring the integrity of the electoral process and the integrity of the three branches of government that are supposed to be, but are not, Of, By, and For We the People of the United STATES of America.
. .
Obama and the Seven Dorks
Politicians are like diapers; They need to be changed frequently,
and for the same reason!
Stop Conflict. Save lives. 40 per cent of conflicts will restart within 10 years of a peace treaty being signed. 90 per cent of the people who die in those conflicts are not armed forces, but civilians, many of them children. We need to stop these conflicts from restarting, to stop people from dying. Peace Direct funds local peace-builders to build lasting peace.
Our vision is a world where the work and knowledge of local peace-builders is central to all strategies for managing conflict. Our mission is to fund local people who are working for peace in their communities. It makes sense to act before a conflict leads to a full blown humanitarian crisis, and to do that we need to listen to the local people who are there on the ground and can see the warning signs.
http://www.insightonconflict.org
Insight on Conflict is Peace Direct’s resource on local peace-builders in conflict areas.
You’ll find information on how local people are working to resolve some of the longest and bloodiest conflicts around the world.
Insight on Conflict provides information on local peace-building organisations in areas of conflict. Local peace-builders already make a real impact in conflict areas. They work to prevent violent conflicts before they start, to reduce the impact of violence, and to bring divided communities together in the aftermath of violence. However, their work is often ignored – either because people aren’t aware of the existence and importance of local peace-builders in general, or because they simply haven’t had access to information and contacts for local peace-builders. We hope that Insight on Conflict can help redress the balance by drawing attention to important work of local peace-builders. On this site, you’ll be able to find out who the local peace-builders are, what they do, and how you might get in touch with them. Over half the organisations featured on Insight on Conflict do not have their own website.
Link to conflict areas they highlight: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Colombia, DR Congo, Kashmir, Kosovo, Israel & The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Liberia, Nepal, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand
Related (yet not):
Food4Peace – Conflict Kitchen
(only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with)
The authors, Prajesh Chhanabhai and Alec Hold, one working at the University of Otago in New Zeland, the other for the Department of Economic and Soical Affairs in the United Nations, make several important points, not least of which is the price point: mobile telephones are being offered in Venezuela for $15, which is half the price the World Bank negotiated with Motorola.
If and when the Chinese see the opportunity (free cell phone, no extra charge for listening in), we should see both free cell phones and eventually free airtime as well as free call centers to educate the poor “one cell call at a time” at the same time that we recoup the investment in elevated national productivity, now proven to be associated with the diffusion of cell phone access.
It merits observation that the cell phone is now the “gift of life” that any one of the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity now) can endow, down to a specific person in a specific village. The sooner we make cell phones ubiquitous, the sooner we can start exposing corruption at all levels (with web sites that make sense of text messages and expose corruption in near-real-time “by name,” and also creating infinite wealth among the four billion at the “bottom of the pyramid.” The human brain is the one inexhaustible resource we have, giving every human a cell phone is the fastest way to harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth.
Interesting Side Note: Carlos “slim” Helu (richest person in the world) has a major stake in Tracfone (some phones go for $10). He could be a major player in the one mobile per child campaign.Venezuela president Hugo Chavez has a Twitter account and the Earth Intelligence Network just posted >> earthintelnet@chavezcandanga “the Vergatario” ($15 phone) + Carlos “Slim” Helu ? http://phibetaiota.net/?p=25785#Vergatario#Venezuela#CarlosSlim
local people are working to resolve some of the longest and bloodiest conflicts around the world.
