David Swanson: Voice for Activism

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence
David Swanson

David Swanson: A Voice For Never-Ending Activism

For activist, author, and blogger David Swanson, it really is about the never-ending struggle for social and economic justice; the same battle that has been fought since time began.  And for him, “success” or “defeat” cannot be defined by one election or one Supreme Court ruling.  For Swanson, “victory” may be generations away, but that does not deter him from keeping the activism fires burning via every avenue he can find.

“I don’t necessarily tell people not to lose hope,” Swanson said in a recent interview with Wisdom Voices.  “I think there’s a problem with having a dependency on hope. I don’t go through these cycles of being hopeful and then being despondent. I actually enjoy activism. I don’t think activism is something temporary that we do it once and then everything will be fixed and then we stop.  I think it’s permanent and it should be permanent.  Activism is more enjoyable than sitting home and griping.  It provides me a way to enjoy living every day.”

. . . . . . . . .

Activism has been rooted in almost all of Swanson’s adult life.  He holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN.  John Nichols of The Nation magazine once said:  “David Swanson will be remembered and well recognized as the citizen who held up a lamp in the darkness and cried, as did good Tom Paine: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again.’ ”

“The most important work I think is educational,” Swanson said.  “By that I mean activism has to take a kind of broad term organizational effort.  It’s not in passing a particular bill or electing a particular person.  Setbacks shouldn’t get us down.  If all of our hopes lie in (President) Obama turning out to be better than he claimed to be or all of our hopes are in un-electing (Wisconsin Governor Scott) Walker, we’re setting ourselves up for defeat because we can lose a particular battle and because elections can be the wrong place to be putting our emphasis to begin with. I think we should be putting about 95 percent of our efforts into educating and organizing and mobilizing non-violent struggle and maybe 5 percent into elections.

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Mini-Me: Obama-Biden – Velvet Killer & Velvet Crook

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

A Killer In the White House [ 88523 ] –

John Grant

This Can't Be Happening, 1  June 2012

“No, Charlotte, I’m the jury now. I sentence you to death.”
The roar of the .45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step.
“How c-could you?” she gasped.
“It was easy.”
– Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury
The news that Barack Obama — a Constitutional scholar and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize — has taken personal charge of lethal US drone hits in Yemen and Pakistan is one of those stories that takes time to sink in.

The New York Times stresses how serious the issue has become. “With China and Russia watching, the United States has set an international precedent for sending drones over borders to kill enemies.” It’s no longer a cool video-game experiment; it’s the beginning of robot warfare, and, if history is a lesson, it will have unanticipated consequences and our enemies will learn to counter the weapon with imaginative weapons of their own, including drones. We should expect to be surprised and blindsided. Martin Luther King spoke of it as a futile rising cycle of violence.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Obama-Biden – Velvet Killer & Velvet Crook”

Mini-Me: AE911Truth LA Press Conference w/ Ed Asner at Premiere of 9/11: Experts Speak Out; 5-22-12

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

AE911Truth LA Press Conference w/ Ed Asner at Premiere of 9/11: Experts Speak Out; 5-22-12

This is the major press conference that AE911Truth held at the occasion of the World Premiere of their powerful myth-shattering documentary “9/11: Explosive Evidence — Experts Speak Out” on May 22, 2012 in Beverly Hills, CA. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth founder, Richard Gage, AIA and AE911Truth supporter and actor, Ed Asner, teamed up to lay into the media in an effort to hold them accountable for their 10-year silence on the subject of the abundant scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony that pulls the rug from under the official story of the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11. This new documentary, introduced by Gage, following the press conference hosts 43 technical and building professionals who cite the evidence and call for a new investigation. It also includes 8 psychology professionals who are well versed in the difficult issues that viewers of this film may face when confronting the evidence.

 Watch Video Below.

Phi Beta Iota:  We are deeply sympathetic about the fact that most Americans, including well-educated Americans and especially well-educated Americans employed by the federal government, simply cannot comprehend this stuff.  They live in a dream world, where America can do no wrong, government can be trusted, Dick Cheney deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and Barack Obama earned the one he got for his first ten days in office, etcetera etcetera.  If the measure of a nation is the combination of public intelligence and public integrity, the USA is deeply mired in a cesspool of its own making.

Patrick Meier: Sell the WHY Not the WHAT with Comment on WHY of OSINT and M4IS2

Cultural Intelligence
Patrick Meier

Does Your Brand Have a Plot?

I overheard this intriguing question whilst at SXSW 2012 earlier this year. The question came to mind again recently while watching Simon Sinek's excellent TEDx talk on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” All too often, most companies seek to inspire customers (to purchase their product or service) by explaining “What they do” rather than “Why they do” what they do. This approach, as it turns out, is exactly the wrong way to catalyze inspiration. Sinek demonstrates how starting with why makes all the difference when seeking to inspire others.

Take Apple as an example:

“If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: we make great computers; they are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Want to buy one? … And that's how most of us communicate, that's how most marketing is done, that's how most sales is done […]. We say what we do, we say how we're different or how we're better, and we expect some sort of behavior, a purchase or vote […]. But it's uninspiring. Here's how Apple actually communicates. Everything we do, we believe in changing the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”

Sinek's main take away message from this example (and indeed his entire talk) is that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. This explains the importance of starting with why:  your purpose, your cause, your belief. ”

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Sell the WHY Not the WHAT with Comment on WHY of OSINT and M4IS2”

Owl: China Swamps US Across the Board – Made in China Computer Chips Have Back Doors, 45 Other “Ways & Means” Sucking Blood from US

02 China, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military
Who? Who?

Two Ways the Chinese May Take Over the World and the US:

1) Chinese Stuxnet for the Rest of the World

If what this analyst says is true, it paints a truly astonishing in implication and very, very ugly picture of the national security situation in store for most governments – especially in the US:

Hardware Assurance and its importance to National Security

Current issues. UK officials are fearful that China has the capability to shut down businesses, military and critical infrastructure through cyber attacks and spy equipment embedded in computer and telecommunications equipment. The Stuxnet worm is the most famous and best case example of a cyber attack on a network which wreaked devastation having easily compromised conventional software defensive systems. There have been many cases of computer hardware having backdoors, Trojans or other programs to allow an attacker to gain access or transmit confidential data to a third party. Considerable focus and expense has been invested in software computer networks and system defences to detect and eradicate such threats. However, similar technology with antivirus or anti Trojan capability for hardware (silicon chips) is not available. The computer or network hardware underpins and runs all the software defence systems. If the hardware has a vulnerability then all the energy in defending at the software level is redundant. An effort must be made to defend and detect at the hardware level for a more comprehensive strategy.

Our findings. Claims were made by the intelligence agencies around the world, from MI5, NSA and IARPA, that silicon chips could be infected. We developed breakthrough silicon chip scanning technology to investigate these claims.

We chose an American military chip that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standard, manufactured in China. Our aim was to perform advanced code breaking and to see if there were any unexpected features on the chip.

We scanned the silicon chip in an affordable time and found a previously unknown backdoor inserted by the manufacturer. This backdoor has a key, which we were able to extract. If you use this key you can disable the chip or reprogram it at will, even if locked by the user with their own key. This particular chip is prevalent in many systems from weapons, nuclear power plants to public transport. In other words, this backdoor access could be turned into an advanced Stuxnet weapon to attack potentially millions of systems. The scale and range of possible attacks has huge implications for National Security and public infrastructure.

Read full article.

2) 45 Signs That China Is Colonizing America

Continue reading “Owl: China Swamps US Across the Board – Made in China Computer Chips Have Back Doors, 45 Other “Ways & Means” Sucking Blood from US”

Event: 13-14 July NYC Robert Steele Live at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE)

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking, Knowledge

Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) Number 9

HOPE Number Nine will be taking place on July 13, 14, and 15, 2012 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. H.O.P.E. stands for Hackers On Planet Earth, one of the most creative and diverse hacker events in the world that's been happening since 1994.

Learn more, Register

Robert David STEELE Vivas

Live at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City

The opening speaker for HOPE in 1994, he has been invited back to every HOPE since then, offering both a serious briefing, and SPY IMPROV, his “open anything” Q&A.

AnyMan for President

30 Minutes:  Robert Steele: How I Tested the Boundaries of the Two-Party Tyranny – Last Call for Occupy/*

Not to be outdone by Jello Biafra, Robert Steele ran for President in 2012.  Accepted by the Reform Party as a candidate, he tested the boundaries for six weeks, created a world-class presidential platform, a coalition cabinet, and the foundation for a national strike to demand electoral reform.  He also connected with every single other candidate less Romney, and reports his impressions….not pretty at all.  His campaign put forward AnyMan for President, and is the only campaign to focus on a concept instead of a personality.  We the People Reform Coalition

Amazon Page

30 Minutes:  2012 The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, & Trust (Evolver Editions, June 2012)

If you thought Steele was motivated before, promoting Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), you ain't seen nothin' yet.  Now he's going for the whole enchilada.  In a 215 page pocketbook (use the link above to see the 33 slides and buy it in advance from any number of sources) he lays out how We the People can reconnect with our integrity, harvest the integrity inherent in Nature, and stomp into oblivion the fraud, waste, and abuse characteristic of all of our organizations — academic, civil society, commerce, government, media, military, and non-government/non-profit.  Steele is for intelligence (decision-support) what Stallman is for software. The citizens' intelligence militia is self-organizing, from zip code to global.  Panarchy rules!

2 hours:  SPY IMPROV:  Everything you ever wanted to ask about anything…

Steele, a recovering spy, honorary hacker across multiple continents, and the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, reading in 98 categories (see the list here) will answer any question on any topic.  Having already set the world record at The Next HOPE (8, 2010) with an eight-hour Q&A, this year the time is being strictly limited to 2 hours.

See Also:

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

2012 Reality Sandwich: How I Tested the Boundaries of the Two-Party Tyranny

09 Justice, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Politics

Eagle-circle_v04-200How I Tested the Boundaries of the Two-Party Tyranny

Robert David Steele Vivas

Reality Sandwich, 24 May 2012

For six weeks in early 2012 I ran for the office of President of the United States of America.  I was accepted by the Reform Party (one of six accredited national parties completely shut out of the political process in the US), was listed at Politics1, participated in a WikiNews interview and got my views posted at On the Issues.  I created We the People Reform Coalition, and I wrote letters to every single candidate for President including Rocky Anderson and Buddy Roemer, throwing in Dennis Kucinich for grins.  This is my report — there are no winners.

Preamble

I was shocked into paying attention by Al Gore's playing dead in 2000 (despite Greg Palast outing the Bush family scheme to disenfranchise 50,000 people of color, doing so three months in advance of election day).  I was radicalized by 9/11 — a clear false-flag operation in which elements of our own government were complicit — and infuriated with the ease by which this nation was taken to war on the strength of 935 now-documented lies — lies that no serving officer — including Colin Powell — was willing to confront.  Then I lost everything in the 2008 economic crash described so well by Matt Taibbi in GRIFTOPIA — it took two years for my company to go out of business — and along came Occupy.  Occupy failed.  This is their story and mine.  If this story moves you, I believe we have 90 days from today to take seven steps that can bury the two-party tyranny and install an honest coalition government.

Continue reading “2012 Reality Sandwich: How I Tested the Boundaries of the Two-Party Tyranny”

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