Collaboration Zones – Page 1013 – Public Intelligence Blog

Syria: Fighting. Press service reports indicate that the combined Syrian army and Hizballah forces have control of most, or all, of the town of al-Qusayr. Government claims of success were matched by opposition pleas for assistance from other areas.

Comment: Control of Qusayr means control of Homs Governate and city, which had been in opposition control for months. Opposition groups remain in control of the northern border with Turkey and parts of eastern Syria bordering Iraq, mainly because the government decided to abandon areas too difficult to hold with limited resources.

Peace talks. The various opposition groups are so fractious that they have been unable to agree on representation at the US-Russian sponsored peace talks in Geneva next month. As a result, the main opposition political group announced it would boycott the talks, ostensibly because the Syrian government would not comply with its condition that Asad step down first. This condition is an attempt to put the best face on the failure to craft a united position and presence for talks.

Asad's interview. President Bashar al-Asad announced that the Syrian Army has accomplished major achievements in facing militants on the ground. In an interview broadcast on the Al-Manar television channel on 30 May, he confirmed that the military scales have completely turned in favor of the army. Al-Asad said that “Syria and Hizballah are a single axis,” adding that there are “groups of Hizballah fighters in border areas of Lebanon, but the Syrian Army is doing the fighting, running the battle in the face of the armed groups, and will continue this battle until they vanquish those that he described as terrorists.

Al-Asad denounced the roles of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in supporting and funding armed groups and he spoke of the presence of nearly 100,000 militants with different Arab and foreign nationalities that entered with the support of these countries.

Continue reading “Syria: Assad on Top – With Russian & Christian Support”

2013/05/30

Berto Jongman: Amy Goodman on Obama’s Sledgehammer

09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Being read (and heard in podcast form) in Europe.

Hammond, Manning, Assange and Obama’s Sledgehammer Against Dissent

By Amy Goodman

One cyberactivist’s federal case wrapped up this week, and another’s is set to begin. While these two young men, Jeremy Hammond and Bradley Manning, are the two who were charged, it is the growing menace of government and corporate secrecy that should be on trial.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Amy Goodman on Obama's Sledgehammer”

2013/05/302013/05/30

Paul Craig Roberts: The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism — What Prostituted Economists Will Not Address

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government

The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism

When I was a graduate student in economics, the social cost of capitalism was a big issue in economic theory. Since those decades ago, the social costs of capitalism have exploded, but the issue seems no longer to trouble the economics profession.

Social costs are costs of production that are not born by the producer or included in the price of the product. There are many classic examples: the pollution of air, water, and land from mining, fracking, oil drilling and pipeline spills, chemical fertilizer farming, GMOs, pesticides, radioactivity released from nuclear accidents, and the the pollution of food by antibiotics and artificial hormones.

Some economists believe that these traditional social costs can be dealt with by well defined property rights. Others think that benevolent government will control social costs in the interests of society.

Today there are new social costs brought by globalism. For developed countries, these are unemployment, lost consumer income, tax base, and GDP growth, and rising trade and current account deficits from the offshoring of manufacturing and tradable professional service jobs. The trade and current account deficits can result in a falling exchange value of the currency and rising inflation from import prices. For underdeveloped countries, the costs are the loss of self-sufficiency and the transformation of agriculture into monocultures to feed the needs of international corporations.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: The Social Cost of (Predatory) Capitalism — What Prostituted Economists Will Not Address”

2013/05/30

4th Media: Syria, Damascus, Decline of Europe and End of Christianty in the Middle East

Cultural Intelligence

The Syrian Crisis in Light of the Decline of Europe

Dmitry MININ | Strategic Culture Foundation

What does the legalization of single-sex «marriages» in France, which even such desperate acts as Dominique Venner’s suicide in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris have been unable to stop, have in common with the civil war in Syria? The common factor is that in both cases we can see signs of the self-destruction complex which is devouring Europe.

The «Decline of Europe», predicted over 100 years ago by Oswald Spengler, has reached the depths of denying not only its own cultural and historical roots, but the reproduction of life itself… The West, as if possessed by a Freudian «death drive», is trying in some kind of frantic blindness to destroy ancient Christian, and thus European, heritage in Syria. And in exactly the same way it is destroying itself little by little through its attitude toward the institution of the family and toward faith.

It’s some kind of theater of the absurd and a mockery of common sense when authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where there is not a fraction of the freedoms and religious tolerance which have long been a hallmark of Syrian society, become Europe’s allies in the fight «for democracy» in Syria. According to the Christian charity «Open Doors», in Qatar, for example, converts to Christianity turn into outcasts and are often victims of violence. Christian migrant workers live in «labor communes», where they are not allowed to gather for worship services, and, as in the times of the first Christians, they pray in secret. In Saudi Arabia any religion besides Islam is prohibited altogether, and becoming a Christian is punishable by death.

Many Muslim citizens of European countries are fighting in the war in Syria on the side of the radical Islamists. It’s not difficult to imagine what they will bring back with them to Europe. According to expert figures, over 100 such «volunteers» from England are fighting in Syria, the same number from the Netherlands, over 80 from France, and dozens from Germany, a total of about 600 people, or 10% of the total number of foreigners in the ranks of the rebels. (1) London and Paris are insisting on a resolution to supply weapons to the Syrian opposition. To whom? To the same people who hack British soldiers to death on the streets of their own capital? Is that not a self-destruction complex?

Civilization in Syria was born in the 4th millennium B.C. Damascus is the most ancient of currently existing world capitals. Syria holds an important place in the history of Christianity. It was on the road to Damascus that the Apostle Paul converted to the Christian faith. It was in Syrian Antioch that the disciples of Christ were first called Christians.

Continue reading “4th Media: Syria, Damascus, Decline of Europe and End of Christianty in the Middle East”

2013/05/30

Jon Rappoport: The Rebel Against the Controlled World

Cultural Intelligence

The Rebel Against the Controlled World

The campaign and attack against the individual takes many forms.

In 2012, I was contacted by a disillusioned psychiatrist who had “left the field.” He told me he was interested in discussing his experiences.

Here is a key remark he made in our conversation:

“Is there a normal state of mind? The answer is no. There is the ability to deal with the reality of the world, which is a very important skill. But state of mind is another matter entirely. You could have a million people who can deal with the world, and they’re all operating in different states of mind. There is no ‘normal’. ‘Normal’ is a modern myth that has no benefits—except to the people who invented it and control it. If you can control ‘normal’ and disseminate it broadly, slip it into consciousness, you have power. It’s like one of those steamrollers. You flatten people.”

Continue reading “Jon Rappoport: The Rebel Against the Controlled World”

2013/05/30

Theophillis Goodyear: No Doomsday Gap – Facts Are Frauds, Because Truth is Wholeness

Cultural Intelligence

There is No Longer a Doomsday Gap: Facts Are Frauds, Because Truth is Wholeness

The words facts, truth, and reality are the three most abused words in human history, because facts can be worse than useless when taken out of context. They can be used to intentionally distort reality. If we consider reality to be everything that exists, that includes all possible contexts as well. Gandhi understood this when he tried to point out to the British rulers of India that it was unfair to deprive Indians of water because they won't work for you free so that you can finance a private hunting expedition. His point was that although from the context of the landlord it made good business sense, from the context of his tenants it is unreasonable.

These days people are more enamored with facts than ever. Of course facts require analysis, but even the best analysis often conceals a hidden agenda that even the analyst might be unaware of. Only analysis that comes as close as possible to including all contexts can be considered to have any relation to reality. And since that's seldom completely possible, all analysis involves some degree of distortion of reality, even if it's only through overlooking various aspects of reality.

Continue reading “Theophillis Goodyear: No Doomsday Gap – Facts Are Frauds, Because Truth is Wholeness”

2013/05/302013/05/30

David Swanson: “Dirty Wars” An Anti-War Blockbuster

Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

An Anti-War Blockbuster

There's no end to the pro-war movies we're subjected to: countless celebrations of bombs, guns, and torture. They come in the form of cartoons, science-fiction, historical fiction, dramas, and reenactments pre-censored by the CIA. Movies show us the excitement without the suffering. War in our theaters resembles almost anything else more than it resembles war.

Journalists appear in our movies too, usually as comic figures, talking-head air-heads, numskulls, and sycophants. In this case, the depiction is much more accurate, at least of much of what passes for journalism.

But, starting in June, a remarkable anti-war / pro-journalism film will be showing — even more remarkably — in big mainstream movie theaters. Dirty Wars (I've read the bookand seen the movie and highly recommend both) may be one of the best educational outreach opportunities the peace movement has had in a long time. The film, starring Jeremy Scahill, is about secretive aspects of U.S. wars: imprisonment, torture, night raids, drone kills.

Dirty Wars won the Cinematography Award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival 2013 and, recently, the Grand Jury Prize at the Boston Independent Film Festival. Variety calls it “jaw-dropping … [with] the power to pry open government lockboxes.” The Sundance jury said it is “one of the most stunning looking documentaries [we've] ever seen.” I agree.

Typically, information that does not support our government's war agenda appears only on the printed page, or perhaps in a power-point presented to the usual heroic crowd of aging white activists gathered outside the range of corporate radar. But stroll through an airport and you'll see hardcopies of Dirty Wars displayed at the front of the bookstores. Check out the movie listings in June and July, and you're likely to see Dirty Wars listed right alongside the latest super-hero, murderfest, sequel of a sequel of some predictable Hollywood hackery.

I wrote a review of the book some time back, after which I picked up a job helping to promote the film. But I'm promoting the film because it's a great film, which is different from calling it a great film because I'm paid to promote it. And my interest remains less in selling the film tickets than in recruiting those who see the film into an active movement to change the reality on which the film reports.

This is not Zero Dark Thirty. You can't walk into Dirty Wars supporting drone strikes, night raids, and cluster bombs and walk out with your beliefs reinforced. Most viewers of Dirty Wars will leave the theater believing that U.S. wars make the United States less safe. In that moment, when people who are usually otherwise engaged have come to realize that the Department of So-Called Defense endangers us (on top of impoverishing us) is when we should sign those people up to take part in activities the following week and month and year.

The film opens by contrasting embedded war journalism — the regurgitation of spoon-fed propaganda — with what the viewer is about to see. And what we see is investigative journalism. The film begins by providing us with an understanding of night raids, including from the point of view of family members who have survived them. We see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tell Scahill that night raids that kills civilians should not be investigated. And then we see Scahill investigate them, his search leading him to secretive branches of the U.S. military involved in a variety of dirty tactics in various countries.

The film does have a failing. It doesn't tell people anything they can do about the horrors they're exposed to. But, of course, activism is possible and far more effective than any journalism — good or bad — will tell you.

Continue reading “David Swanson: “Dirty Wars” An Anti-War Blockbuster”