The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Recommended!
Phi Beta Iota: Two items are included in full below the line in sequence. To read them in their original online form, here are the two headlines:
How I Got to Madison, Wisconsin …a letter from Michael Moore
Michael Moore: The Smug Wealthy Have Gone Too Far — And We're Finally Fighting Back
Continue reading “Michael Moore on the Class War & Looting of America”
Today's News, Brought to You by Your Friends at the CIA
Spy Service Translates World's Papers at Secret Cost; Mr. Hounsell Has Few Buyers
Phi Beta Iota: Worth a full read (click on headline). One word summary: “stagnant.” Neither the DNI nor the CIA nor DoD nor anyone else is serious about Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), known as “Open Sores” within the secret and largely useless U.S. Intelligence Community, which provides, 4% “at best” according to General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret) of what any senior commander needs, and nothing tailored to the needs of everyone else according to Robert Steele, OSINT proponent since 1988. If Congress were not so busy steam-rolling pork through secret channels as the open ones dry up–if Congress had any integrity at all–it would be asking the fundamental question: if we spent $3 billion on a proper Open Source Agency, how much of the $70-90 billion secret fraud, waste, and abuse could we eliminate? The answer? 50% in quick time, 75% over six years. Meanwhile, the real world is now routing around the US Government.
ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President
Continue reading “1992-2012 CIA Still Does Not “Get” Open Source”
to solve them could effectively make its country economically uncompetitive, leading to inflation, unemployment, or even economic collapse.
Simpol aims to break the vicious circle governments find themselves in by encouraging people around the world to oblige their politicians and governments to cooperate globally in implementing appropriate policies simultaneously for the good of all.
Only by implementing policies simultaneously can our problems be resolved in a way that no nation, corporation, or citizen loses out. If all nations act together, everybody wins.
Below is an article from the Boston Globe that inspired interesting comments. Two of them are offered below the line for consideration.
Why can’t liberals capture the populist moment?
By Neal Gabler Boston Globe, February 22, 2011
A RECENT essay in Boston Review by historian William Hogeland pondered a perplexing political question: Why haven’t populists and liberals been able to make common cause? They seem like natural allies. They both rail against economic inequality. They both are skeptical of America’s financial masters of the universe. They both believe that government has an obligation to help the country’s working men and women. They are both angry about the direction the country has been taking. Read more…
You know that an era is over when the speakers at TED are dominated by people like General MacChrystal.
I get it – coolness, celebrity, and schmoozing will save the world. No actual work is required. Just conferences for people who no longer do any actual work. Bertolt Brecht would recognize Berlin in the 1930's.
As Posted to Closed List of Real Pioneers
Phi Beta Iota: We have 80 active contributors, and tend to defer to the original intent, but this is a spiritual commentary with a cultural point that is valid, but over the top on dismissing the 80% of TED that is wonderous–such as our most respected TED Video to date, TED: Sugata Mitra–The child-driven education. The above is a strong signal for TED, nothing more, nothing less.
The declassified version of my 1968 Studies in Intelligence article can be found in a couple of different formats under “Jack Davis, Bogotazo.” Please post it. I think this is my first published work.
Take a look at the conclusions of an article I wrote 43 years ago, and substitute “North Africa” for “Latin America” and “al Qa’ida” for “Communists.”
Jack
APPROVED FOR RELEASE 1994 CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM 2 JULY 96
SECRET
Distant events shape the craft of intelligence.
Jack Davis
On the afternoon of 9 April 1948, angry mobs suddenly and swiftly reduced the main streets of Bogotá to a smoking ruin. Radio broadcasts, at times with unmistakable Communist content, called for the overthrow of the Colombian government and of “Yankee Imperialism.” Many rioters wore red arm bands; some waved banners emblazoned with the hammer-and-sickle. A mob gutted the main floor of the Capitola Nacional, disrupting the deliberations of the Ninth International Conference of American States and forcing Secretary of State Marshall and the other delegates to take cover. The army regained control of the city over the next day or two. But not before several thousand Colombians had been killed. It was the bogotazo.
