Category: Collaboration Zones

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Obama’s March to Folly: The Myth of Liberal Intervention & the Arrogance of Ignorance

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off

Weekend Edition
December 17 – 19, 2010

The Myth of Liberal Intervention and the Arrogance of Ignorance

Obama's March to Folly

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch

In a recent opinion piece, “Kosovo and the Myth of Liberal Intervention,” Neil Clark in the Guardian on 15 December gave the reader a good summary of the some of the myths surrounding the Kosovo war, although he helped to perpetuate one myth, namely that the so-called genocide of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbs could be as high as 10,000. While Clark fudged the issue by using a range of 2,000-10,000, the fact remains that examination of mass burial sites by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) exhumed 2,788 bodies in Kosovo, some of whom were undoubtably Serbs; nor could the ICTY distinguish how many of these bodies were victims of war crimes or were the unintended detritus of NATO's “precision” bombing. The number of 10,000 was a face-saving, last-ditch, “statistical” estimate produced by the US State Department (its earlier estimates were far higher), which had a vested interest in proving the genocide it claimed Serbia had committed as a justification for NATO's “humanitarian” bombing campaign. The estimate of 10,000 was based on dubious (to put it charitably) statistical methods for estimating the number of bodies the State Department said existed but could not find — once illustrating government's propensity to confuse the a priori with the a posteriori

Continue reading “Obama's March to Folly: The Myth of Liberal Intervention & the Arrogance of Ignorance”

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Journal: Lost in the White House–What Might be Best for America….

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Full Story Online

In this thoughtful piece, Bob Burnett uses the word progressive, with which
I don¹t disagree.  But from another vantage, I see him articulating a
transpartisan message that Jim Turner and Lawry Chickering put forward in
their seminal book Voice of the People: the Transpartisan Imperative in
American Life and that Bruce Shuman describes in The Emerging Transpartisan
Politics

Not only progressives, but independents, moderate Republicans, third party
and third force members and those who don¹t vote for whatever reason will
resonate with Burnett's three pillars of a progressive message —  a
significant majority of Americans.  Robert Fuller might add that the three
pillars Burnett articulates are core elements in overcoming ranksim and
building a dignitarian society, which is also a transpartisan society.

Phi Beta Iota: There are 65 parties in America, and the ostensible front for the Independents, IndependentVoting.org, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Michael Bloomberg that sold out early to No Labels.  For a hard-hitting piece on three things America needs that the White House (or any billionaire) could sponsor, see Personal for Mike Bloomberg.

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Journal: The College Education Bubble-Scam-Implosion

03 Economy, 04 Education, Academia, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Jerry Bowyer

The Great Relearning

Higher education's price-earnings ratio looks like Nevada housing circa 2007.

Jerry Bowyer, 12.16.10, 03:15 PM EST  Forbes

The overwhelming cultural consensus of the post-WWII generation was that if you are middle-class, then you simply must own your own home and your children must go to college. Out of that cultural consensus emerged a complex system of tax breaks and special lending deals designed to make sure that the number of Americans who bought houses and bachelor's degrees was as high as possible–or maybe more so.

Many people now understand that this system of tax-and-lend has created a multigenerational housing bubble. But only a few have noticed that a very similar tax-and-lend system has also created a multi-generational higher education bubble.

Read rest of article….
Phi Beta Iota: There is good news.  The smartest of the smart have been dropping out of high school, not just college, and then learning what they need to learn online and through hands-on experience.  Like most bubbles, including not just the housing mortgage bubble but also the DoD acquisition bubble, the DoD private military contractor bubble, and so on, this bubble rests on fraud being permitted–a lack of accountability for outcomes.  In today's world, with transparency emergent and soon rampant, accountability is going to be a fact of life.  That is a good thing.

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Journal: Humans as Slaves–Our Global Shame

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence
DefDog Recommends...

The word ‘slavery' often conjures brutal images of a long since vanquished historic project, but its practice, more commonly and legally referred to as human trafficking, continues to thrive in every corner of the globe – making it the world's second largest criminal industry.

By Cassandra Clifford for ISN Insights

People are comparatively cheaper than they were in the 1600-1800s, when slaves were purchased for life. Now ownership tends to last only a few months to a few years, making slaves cheaper to purchase and more easily disposable. In 1850 the purchase price of a slave in the southern US averaged the equivalent of $40,000 today. According to Free the Slaves, a slave today costs an average of $90. People have become a disposable commodity, cheap and easy labor one can just toss out when no longer needed. Globalization and the post-World War II population boom have increased access to, and lowered the cost of, transportation, which has in turn contributed to the increased levels of global slavery. Victims are often driven into slavery by severe poverty or acute need for economic gain. Additionally, the ethnicity of today's slave is rarely important.

Read complete article….

See Also:

Review: Nobodies–Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy

Review: The Manufacture of Evil–Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System

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Journal: Weasal words more difficult to get away with

Cultural Intelligence
Seth Godin Home

Weasel words are more difficult to get away with

I got a note from someone who “helps lead the internet and Media efforts” at a fairly well known venture firm.

A click over to their website indicates that he's not a Managing Director or a Partner, not a Limited Senior Advisor, nor a Founding Strategic Director, Principal, Director of Business Development, Vice President or even a Senior Associate. He's an Associate. Which is fine, of course, unless the first thing you told a stranger is that you help lead an important initiative.

Organizations have always been good at title inflation, because it's free and it serves their purposes. The net, though, makes it easy to see what the hierarchy actually looks like, so it's better to just be clear, I think.

[A few readers have asked what he should do instead. After all, he shouldn't act like a mere, cog, right? My point is that he should tell the truth, a truth that gets better after being googled.

He could call and say, “I work for Joe Jones (brag about Joe for a while). He's open to meeting with you and I can make that happen if it's interesting to you.”

…or he could say, “I'm the junior man here at Tate Industries and my job is to find interesting projects and bring them to the partners. Last year, I started the interactions between us and x, y and z. Is it worth your time to get together and figure out the best way to pitch this project to them?”

In both cases, starting on a clearer footing gives you more power, not less.]

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran-Pakistan, Iran-Turkey-India, Israel

05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Peace Intelligence

Iran-Pakistan: Iranian officials on 16 December accused Pakistan of being linked to a 15 December suicide bombing in southeastern Iran. Iran's deputy minister and chief of security at the Interior Ministry, Ali Abdollahi, said Pakistani officials had ignored Iranian warnings about bases in Pakistan for anti-Iranian elements and had allowed the terrorists to cross into Iran.

Iranian lawmaker Kazem Jalali said initial reports and confessions from arrested Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi showed that the bombers had been trained in Pakistan. Pakistan must clarify its position on the terrorists and on the Iranian government, Jalali said.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: On the 15th two bombers detonated themselves at a mosque in Chabahar, killing 41 people and injuring at least 50 on the eve of the Shiite holy day Ashura, which honors the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed.

The results of Iran's custodial interrogation and Iranian accusations against Pakistan are virtually identical in substance to Indian interrogation of the surviving Mumbai terrorist and Indian accusations about Pakistan and terrorists.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: Iran, Turkey, and India are now seeing common cause with respect to the threat from both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  We anticipate new forms of multinational information-sharing and sense-making emerging in the region.