Journal: Intelligence Is A Critical Need

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

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Intelligence Is A Critical Need

To do the job right and win

By Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Rep. John Shadegg

September 25, 2009  Pg. 21

Phi Beta Iota: Despite the fact that Representative Hoekstra is now Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), neither of these two individuals (or their staffs) appear to know what it would take to do proper intelligence in Afghanistan; why their commentary is fifteen years too late; and/or why it is also moot in the absence of a coherent reality-based strategy and the rescinding of the existing rules of engagement that are incapcitating our troops.  Both good men trapped in a bad system, they have no access to ground truth from iconoclasts and are a perfect reprise to the “best and the brightest” on Viet-Nam–brilliantly uninformed.

Journal: American Awakening

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Reform
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Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama

The backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was.

By Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online, September 18, 2009

No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.

Instead, the real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy. It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust.

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2009 Paul Ray New Emerging Culture in the USA

Cultural Intelligence, Historic Contributions, Policy, Reform
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What we found very early on was that the values that predict well do not depend on personal psychology, but rather that they differ by three subcultures: Traditional, Modern and Trans-Modern. The latter are the Cultural Creative population, and this was the first research to show that ecology values and spiritual-psychological values made a difference to people’s lifestyles, and to their stance as voters. Because they are cultural, the values we measured are slow to change, unlike attitudes and opinions, and the business cycle has very little effect on them (though it affects people's ability to pay for what they want).

It’s the way cultures construe reality that matters. Thus, a financial materialism measure is part of what identifies the Modernist subculture, and an ecological measure is part of what identifies the emerging culture of the planet, and the Cultural Creatives. When we put them into a context of politics, they are at the opposite ends of a larger dimension, the tense opposition between a powerful, but recently wounded, business conservatism, versus a large and growing group of new ecological and planetary concerns, which grew out of all the new social movement values and beliefs. The surprise that then emerges across all cultural creatives studies is that this takes on the flavor of something very consequential.

Graphic Below the Fold

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Journal: A ‘weapons system’ based on wishful thinking

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence
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Boston Globe (our favorite serious newspaper)

By Andrew Wilder September 16, 2009

ARTIST: (Christopher Serra for The Boston Globe)

IN APRIL, the US Army published the “Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System,’’ a handbook that provides guidance on how to use aid funding to win the support of the “indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents.’’ This summer the US government indicated that it plans to nearly double (to $1.2 billion) the main fund military commanders in Afghanistan use to support projects intended to “win hearts and minds.’’

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Journal: Drones versus Pioneers–Defining the Finish Line

04 Education, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

A foolish article about a foolish survey about a foolish educational system captures all that is wrong with America today.  The best and the brightest become hackers and self-directed pioneers (Richard Stahlman is the most righteous, Bill Gates the most obvious).  The “well-behaved” are the ones that cross “the finish line” because they do not question authority and they actually believe that 18-25 years of rote education and extended childhood is good for them.

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Event Report: 9 Sep 09 GMU N Va Economic Liberty Series

Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Policies, Reform, True Cost Meme
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Mr. Rockwell is a very gracious and well-spoken person.  He delivered a prepared speech that will be posted online by the Ludwig von Mises Institute at some point.  Our bottom line up front: the hard-core Libertarians are a one-trick-pony with an obsessive focus on one thing and one thing only: all against the State.  Sadly, despite a great deal of hand waving about Austrian economists, there is not much in the way of economic reflection visible, and the gentlemen was specifically unable to address a question about a natural alliance between the Libertarians armed with scarcity-centered Austrian economics, and the Greens, armed with Ecological Economics, Natural Capitalism, and “true cost” accounting; nor was he able to engage with a subsequent question on a natural alliance with those interested in Evolutionary Living.

Mr. Rockwell, who served as Chief of Staff to Congressman Ron Paul and is now Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute at a time when it is experiencing extraordinary growth and drawing a great deal of attention, sought to do several things with his planned remarks:

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Journal: Facebook Toys with Facsism

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
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By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Published: August 26, 2009
The Medium:Facebook Exodus

Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having dismissed his mother’s snap judgment of the site (“Facebook is the devil”), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea, and sells T-shirts with the words “Shut Your Facebook.” What especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation of personal and social life.

. . . . . . .

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”