Category: Cultural Intelligence

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Reference (2): Income Inequality in the USA

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off

It is becoming increasingly clear that the United States passed through some kind of fork in the economic road in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and has now landed on onto an evolutionary pathway toward some kind of decline.  The questions of what interplay of chance and necessity created the turning movement in the pathway of socio-economic evolution, how enduring that new pathway is, or where it is leading no one can answer; but with the advantage of hindsight, it is becoming empirically clear that most of the adverse economic trends of de-industrialization, deregulation, increasing debt, a collapsing trade balance, the stagnation of real wages, rising income inequality, etc., took a systemic turn for the worse during the five years between 1977 and 1982.

Attached are two reports (in pdf format) on one aspect of anatomy of decline: rising income inequality.  They build on the seminal research (which can be downloaded here and here) of Professors Emanuel Saez's (Univ. of Calif. Berkeley) and Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), which quantified and analyzed the size, nature, and effects of rising income inequality in the United States.

The first report has been  prepared by the democratic majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress and therefore may be discounted by some as partisan — to those readers inclined to dismiss this report, I suggest that they compare its results of the Saez-Piketty analyses before jumping to any conclusions.

The second report is a non partisan analysis produced by Frank Levy and Peter Temlin of Industrial Performance Center of MIT.

Reference A: The Senate Report (2010)

Reference B:  The MIT Report (2007)

See Also:

Journal: Financial Crime versus Financial Sense

Journal: Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction All Lies?

Journal: Rug Mechants & Tax Traps

Reference: Wall Street Does NOT Produce Value

Journal: Deficit Reduction Plan Hoses Everyone BUT the 10% at the Top

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Journal: Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists, Internal Al Qaeda Critiques

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Mapping
Berto Jongman Recommends...

Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists

by Angel Rabasa, Stacie Pettyjohn, Jeremy Ghez, Christopher Boucek

RAND Monograph 2010 242 Pages Free Online or $26

Proactive measures to prevent vulnerable individuals from radicalizing and to rehabilitate those who have already embraced extremism have been implemented, to varying degrees, in several Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and European countries. A key question is whether the objective of these programs should be disengagement (a change in behavior) or deradicalization (a change in beliefs) of militants. Furthermore, a unique challenge posed by militant Islamist groups is that their ideology is rooted in a major world religion. An examination of deradicalization and counter-radicalization programs in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each program, finding that the best-designed programs leverage local cultural patterns to achieve their objectives. Such programs cannot simply be transplanted from one country to another. They need to develop organically in a specific country and culture.

Broadside fired at al-Qaeda leaders

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Asia Times, 10 December 2010

ISLAMABAD – A number of senior al-Qaeda members who had earlier opposed the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and some of whom were recently released from detention in Iran, have produced an electronic book critical of al-Qaeda's leadership vision and strategy.

The book, the first of its kind to publicly show collective dissent within al-Qaeda, was released last month. It urges the self-acclaimed global Muslim resistance against Western hegemony to open itself to the Muslim intelligentsia for advice and to harmonize its strategy with mainstream Islamic movements.

Full Article….

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Journal: Michael Lind–Nobody Represents the American People

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Policies
Full Story Online
Topic:

Populism

Nobody represents the American people

By Michael Lind

Many Americans have come to the conclusion that nobody represents them in Washington anymore. They are right.

This situation is not the result of a sinister conspiracy by a single, unitary, all-powerful and diabolical elite. The origins of the disconnect are structural. The mass membership organizations that once represented ordinary Americans at the state and national level have been replaced by elite organizations that raise their money from a small number of billionaires rather than hundreds of thousands or millions of dues-paying members.

Phi Beta Iota: This is the first time we have seen this important idea presented so plainly.  GroupOn might yet help solve the problem.  What is clear is that the Internet has spawned the fragmentation of groups even further, without offering something like GroupOn that could bring them all back together issue by issue–this was the reason Earth Intelligence Network was created, to be a proponent for a World Brain and EarthGame that could connect all people with all relevant information, and in this way enable informed participatory democracy across multiple boundaries–Panarchy, the opposite of Anarchy.  Electoral Reform is an important first step, but as the full article suggests, the public desperately needs some vehicle for representing all of the people all of the time.

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Journal: Seth Godin–You Will Be Misunderstood

Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Key Players

Seth Godin Home

You will be misunderstood

If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it's just to ten people.

You didn't say what they said you said.

You didn't mean what they said you meant.

Or read the comments on just about any blog post or video online. People who saw what you just saw or read what you just read completely misunderstood it. (Or else you did.)

We think direct written and verbal communication is clear and accurate and efficient. It is none of those. If the data rate of an HDMI cable is 340MHz, I'm guessing that the data rate of a speech is far, far lower. Yes, there's a huge amount of information communicated via your affect, your style and your confidence, but no, I don't think humans are so good at getting all the details.

Plan on being misunderstood. Repeat yourself. When in doubt, repeat yourself.

Phi Beta Iota: Add to that cross-cultural, cross-language, and cross-faith blinders, and you end up with face to face that is at best 20% of what you intended to communicate, and out of context to boot.  This would be an excellent change in focus for both the US Foreign Service Academy and all the schools pupporting to teach international relations.

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran/NKorea Rockets for Venezuela

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence

Venezuela-Iran: Die Welt is the original source for the following item, which is too important to overlook.

“Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on unidentified western sources, according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, on 25 November. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on 19 October 2010.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran/NKorea Rockets for Venezuela”

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Journal: Reinventing Education–Putting Students First

04 Education, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

Steve Denning

Reinventing education and the StudentsFirst.org movement

The US education is in crisis. The evidence is well-known and summarized in my post earlier this week.

Classroom A root cause of the crisis is the application of the factory model of management to education, where everything is arranged for the scalability and efficiency of “the system”, to which the students, the teachers and the parents have to adjust. “The system” grinds forward, at ever increasing cost and declining efficiency, dispiriting students, teachers and parents alike.

The root cause of the problems: factory model of management

. . . . . .

The five shifts that are needed in education

Just as in reinventing management, where five fundamental and interdependent shifts are needed, so in reinventing education five fundamental and interdependent shifts need to occur:

1.      The first shift concerns the goal which has to shift from a focus on the efficiency of “the system” to one of putting students first.

. . . . . .

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Reference: The Rich are Not Hypocrites by Paul Williams

Blog Wisdom, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

THE RICH ARE NOT HYPOCRITES

Paul Williams

I am sick to my stomach with “progressive” and “liberal” leaders hurling the insult of “hypocrites!” at the rich.

“Hypocrite” is a word used by men in suits and ties.  “Hypocrite” is even used by people who think this Obama deal on the extension of unemployment benefits is one dandy mitigating factor, in the injustice of it all.

What about our Christian (etc.) Brothers and Sisters—the “99ers”–the American human beings who have reached the 99-week limit, and are now ruthlessly spit into poverty.  Millions of them, thousands every day.

“Hypocrites” is a word that is used by rich people and Progressives who think that poor people are statistics.  Too bad, we can’t take care of these devastated American souls… “After all,” many of employed think secretly or not, “They should go get a job.”

Do you understand this simple fucking fact—there used to be three men on a garbage truck.  Two threw in the garbage and one drove.  Now there’s a driver with an expensive, giant, robotic, steel, throwing arm.  Those other two guys are out of work, and, now, out of luck.  Tough nuggies.

What happened to the garbage men has happened to millions of people.  It is called structural unemployment.  Industry got more and more efficient with better machines and cheaper labor (from wherever).  The structure of how we make things has changed.  We use fewer citizens and more machines.  We need educated people, not public high school drop-outs.  Fuck ‘em.

Continue reading “Reference: The Rich are Not Hypocrites by Paul Williams”