The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
A Conversation with Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
David Thorburn
Books by Shirley Turkle
1984 The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit
1997 Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
2011 Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Pogo reigns supreme…..
Pentagon Will Consider Cyberattacks Acts of War
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times, May 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon, trying to create a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks on the United States, plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may result in a military response.
Phi Beta Iota: These people literally have no clue and are simply striving for budget share before Pentagon right-sizing gets underway. We absolutely guarantee that what the Pentagon and the US Intelligence Community do to their own employees every day (including forbidding thumb drives now) qualifies as a crime against humanity as well as an act of war. The USG is its own worst enemy in every possible sense.
See Also:
2011 Cyber-Command or IO 21 + IO Roots
Bob Gates, Chief Maintenance Clerk, Talks Crap — and the Wall Street Journal Goes Along…
Defense and the Deficit–Busting the Defense Bubble, Ending Defense Entitlement
Reference: The Pentagon Labyrinth
Review (Guest): The Pentagon Labyrinth
Review: Grand Theft Pentagon–Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror
Millionaires Control 39% of the World’s Wealth
By Robert Frank
Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2011
Last year was another good year for millionaires – though their pace of growth is slowing.
According to a new report by Boston Consulting Group out today, the number of millionaire households in the world grew by 12.2% in 2010, to 12.5 million. (BCG defines millionaires as those with $1 million or more in investible assets, excluding homes, luxury goods and ownership in one’s own company).
The U.S. continues to lead the world in millionaires, with 5.2 million millionaire households, followed by Japan with 1.5 million millionaire households, China with 1.1 million and the U.K. with 570,000. Singapore leads the world in “millionaire density,” or the percentage of millionaires, with 15.5% of its population now millionaire households.
The most important trend, however, is the global wealth distribution. According to the report, the world’s millionaires represent 0.9% of the world’s population but control 39% of the world’s wealth, up from 37% in 2009. Their wealth now totals $47.4 trillion in investible wealth, up from $41.8 trillion in 2009.
Phi Beta Iota: The single most consistent precondition for revolution across centuries has been the over-concentration of wealth. We're there. Now all we need is a few precipitants.
See Also:
Continue reading “<1% of World Population Controls 39% of All Wealth”
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, just published, is The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books). Watch a Timothy MacBain TomCast video of him discussing the American way of war by clicking here.
Dumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal?
Campaign for Liberty, 05/31/2011
Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden's killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those “enhanced interrogation techniques” legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does it?
Here are a few of the BIG lies used to support the status quo. What we need, rather urgently, is a counter-narrative
LIE 1. The earth is an open system with infinite supplies and sinks;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Earth is a closed system, changes that used to take 10,000 years now take three, humanity is “peaking” the entire system.
LIE 2. Everything must be monetized;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Money is an exchange unit and an information unit; in the absence of holistic analytics and “true cost” transparency, mony is actually a toxic means of concentrating wealth and depriving communities of their own resources (e.g. land).
LIE 3. The extreme unregulated free market is the only option for a modern economy;
POSSIBLE TRUTH: Information asymmetries and “rule by secrecy” have been clearly documented–the free market is neither free nor fair. A modern economy needs to be transparent, resilient, and hence rooted in the local.
Continue reading “USA: Thirteen Big Lies — Needed Counter-Narrative”
FACT: USG poised to borrow $1.6 TRILLION in 20
FACT: No one is talking about stopping borrowing as a pre-condition for addessing the problem.
FACT: No one is talking about strategic analytics across the entire budget
FACT: Democrats are demanding tax increases without any reference to reduced borrowing.
FACT: Some, not all, Republicans beginning to associate “truth” with “debt.”
31 May 2011: BBC Link corrected.
Dear friends,
The personal is political.
This is true in so many ways. I am part of my culture and social systems, and they are part of me, embedded in me. They shape how I think and act, how I respond, what I think is right and possible — and I, in turn, play my role in them, no matter what I do or don't do.
This isn't something I can escape. It is simply what is. What I CAN do is try to be aware of it, of how this dynamic plays out in my life and in the lives around me. And try to make that dynamic into something that enlightens, empowers, and frees me and us.
Among the most important 21st century “personal is political” dynamics is the increasing personalization of commodities and the commodification of our personal lives.
Continue reading “Reality Always Bats Last: Personal Political Pathos”
