Phi Beta Iota: A one-day global block party or a one-day sick-out would make much more sense. This is however an important example of both the scale that is possible and the seeding that is emergent. The times they are a-changing.
Phi Beta Iota: We anticipate both a proliferation of such events via Facebook, and a convergence toward “Big Events” and nation-wide orchestration of simultaneous events.
Here’s the thing: the House Republicans are going after their version of unsightly pimples on the body politic — the programs they and their billionaire sponsors find ideologically unpalatable — without seriously considering where our money really flows. We at TomDispatch thought we might lend a hand to Congress’s deliberations this week by offering something new: the first real figure on what American taxpayers actually pay for the Pentagon, the U.S. military, homeland security, our distant wars, the care of veterans, intelligence, and every other aspect of our national security and war state.
. . . . . . .
$1.2 Trillion: The Real U.S. National Security Budget No One Wants You to Know About
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
Phi Beta Iota: We used to admire Jim Clapper, so much so that a member of our collective issued a press release in his defense when Donald Rumsfeld fired him for telling the truth. General Clapper appears to have forgotten how to tell the truth, and he is not leading the US Intelligence Community, he is administering it with cronies assigned to administer the various agencies. There is no longer intelligence at the top of the intelligence community. It is time for a full-spectrum house cleaning, to include the conversion of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, which is not needed, into the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Peace Operations, which IS needed. Mike Vickers is not qualified for either position.
Media Spin: Clapper told the truth. Reality: Clapper is out of touch with reality–he cannot even outline the ten high-level threats to humanity or explain why continued fragmentation of the US Government is the greatest threat to our near term as well as a long term stability and prosperity. Russia and China are not military threats to the US but rather economic threats, and in the case of China, a demographic and scientific & technology threat. The Old Guard is dead, may they rest in peace. Sadly, there is no bench within the US Intelligence Community OR the contractor world. We anticipate nothing beneficial for our $90 billion a year.
The great events in tthe Arab world are part of a wider hidtorical process of worldwide democrativ advance.But the distrous events of the post-9/11 decade have made it far slower and more conflictual than needed, says Martin Shaw*
EXTRACT: “…everywhere, the unifying thread is opposition to authoritarianism and aspiration to democratic rule; and the sense of a psychological break with the dictatorial past is unmistakable.”
Phi Beta Iota: One of the most concise, thoughtful, and inspiring summaries of both the present prospects and the recent failed past, all in the context of the past half century.
Time: Friday, July 1 at 6:00am – July 8 at 11:00pm
2010-12-04 How WikiLeaks builds a global open source insurgency