Cultural Intelligence – Page 994 – Public Intelligence Blog

Incoherence Left and Right — Obama, Palin, and Paul

Phi Beta Iota: The incoherent insanity of BOTH the left and the right, of both those in power and those without power, is cresting. While the Obama Administration does everything it can to emulate and extend the Constitutional violations of the Cheney-Bush regime, the far right is losing its mind completely. Below are two items, just a taste of what happens when gerbils learn to read and write.

What Is Sarah Palin?

It seems that Palin– the attractive, outdoors-loving “hockey mom”-is popular solely because of her personality, not any specific policy positions. Notes columnist Steve Chapman “Who needs policy? In her world – and the world of legions of conservatives who revere her – the persona is the policy. Palin is beloved because she’s (supposedly) just like ordinary people, which (supposedly) gives her a profound understanding of their needs.” When dissecting political cults of personality, it would seem that Palin has become the Republicans’ Obama–handsome, charming and a human comfort blanket for partisans.

Continue reading “Journal: Right on the Left and Left on the Right”

2009/11/242009/11/24

Journal: 10-Year Old Questions Pledge of Allegiance

04 Education, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

10-year-old refuses to say Pledge of Allegiance until everyone has equal rights

Lylah M. Alphonse November 23, 2009

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy is refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school until our country does a better job of living up to its ideals.

“I looked at the end and it said ‘with liberty and justice for all.' And there really isn't liberty and justice for all,” Will Phillips told CNN recently. “Gays and lesbians can't marry. There's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world.”

You know what? I think he's got a great point.

Phi Beta Iota: As featured on the Colbert Nation Show.

2009/11/24

Journal: Common Sense on Palestine & Israel

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Peace Intelligence

Gershon Baskin

Encountering Peace: Getting serious about ‘economic peace'

More than 10 months have passed since President Barack Obama entered the White House and seven months since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took over the reins in Jerusalem and there is still no peace process worth mentioning.

Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: Imagine an “Information Wall” available online and projected on walls around the world, showing the stark contrast between the day to day conditions of the Palestinians and of the Israelis.

2009/11/24

Journal: A Nation of Naive Inattentive Infidels

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement

Full Op-Ed Online

Lethal Weapon: Islamist Perfidy or Western Naivety?

by Raymond Ibrahim, Pajamas Media, November 23, 2009

The narrator’s enthusiastic talk of NYPD brass standing in awe of the “cadences of the call” makes it difficult to discern exactly which verse is being recited. Only the last few words — qawm al-kaffirin, “nation of infidels” — are crystal clear, raising red flags. Thanks to my trusty Arabic Koranic concordance, I have placed this phrase as part of Koran 2:286, which supplicates Allah “to make us [Muslims] victorious over the nation of infidels.” Bear in mind that, from an Islamist point of view, the United States is the “nation of infidels” par excellence.

And there it is: From an American president who publicly defines his mission by quoting a jihadi-related verse, to American-Muslim leaders who publicly pray for the subjugation of non-Muslims (in the middle of an NYPD auditorium, no less), it is clear that the ultimate threat comes more from Western carelessness and indifference — in a word, naivety — than it does from active Islamist machinations. In short, Islamists peddling misleading interpretations for the word “jihad” is but the very tip of the iceberg.

Continue reading “Journal: A Nation of Naive Inattentive Infidels”

2009/11/232010/09/02

Reference: The Hasan Slide Presentation

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Articles & Chapters, Cultural Intelligence, Military

Phi Beta Iota: Berto Jongman flagged this from the Small Wars Journal. It is consistent with our own earlier diagnosis of Cognitive Dissonance, and we recommend it be read in its entirety. At the link below can be found a link to the original slide show. The author stresses the reasonable gravity of the conflict between being a Muslim and being asked to kill other Muslims, and while he avoids recommending a policy, we do not. DoD has been culturally ignorant for too long. It's time we brought both DoD human resource management and DoD counterintelligence into the 21st Century. See also:

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show

Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up

Journal: Cognitive Dissonance, Military Suicides, and an Alternative Interpretation of the Fort Hood Deaths

2009/11/212009/11/21

Review: Common Sense–the Way Back

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Reform

Patriotic Love and Common Sense For All

November 21, 2009

Felton Williamson, Jr.

By remarkable coincidence, Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life just came out, jumped to the top of my ‘waiting to read” stack, and includes the phrase “Commonsense Conservative” is featured in that book. Combine it with Richard Branson's “Gaia Capitalism” and you have the makings of something special.

This book is short (123 pages), easy to read, and an inspiring patriotic labor of love, a gift to all of us who care deeply for American the Beautiful and are confused and/or angry about all that has been done “in our name” by the festering cesspool of Washington-based politicians and senior bureaucrats who live to claim budget share (inputs) rather than deliver public service (outputs).

The author provides the single best, most complete, and most sensible demarche against EARMARKS that I have ever seen. Included are eight illustrations and I will list them here because they capture the essence of this book's common sense:

Continue reading “Review: Common Sense–the Way Back”

2009/11/202010/09/02

Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look

Researcher Berto Jongman recommends….

Poverty and unemployment fuel the conflict according to 70% of Afghans, new Oxfam research shows

Seventy per cent of Afghans surveyed see poverty and unemployment as the major cause of the conflict in their country, according to new research by international aid agency Oxfam and a group of Afghan organisations. Ordinary Afghans blame government weakness and corruption as the second most important factor behind the fighting, with the Taliban coming third, followed by interference by neighboring countries.

200 Web Sites Spread Al Qaeda's Message In English

Reassessing the Evolving al Qaeda Threat to the Homeland: Testimony of Peter Bergen Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment

Al Qaeda today no longer poses a direct national security threat to the United States itself, but rather poses a second-order threat in which the worst case scenario would be an al Qaeda-trained or -inspired terrorist managing to pull off an attack on the scale of something in between the 1993 Trade Center attack, which killed six, and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, which killed 168.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Berto Jongman on Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA Torture, and Maj Nidal Hasan’s Slide Show”