Category: Collaboration Zones

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Reference: Crash Course on Reality

07 Other Atrocities, Blog Wisdom, Briefings (Core), Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), IO Mapping, IO Sense-Making, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Movies, Officers Call, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Strategy, True Cost
Chris Martenson Home

Chris Martenson not only paid attention to all of the early warning signals, but acted upon them, leaving a Fortune 50 job, selling his Connecticut home, getting out of the stock market, and buying gold and silver.  Now he has produced the single best, down-to-earth, detailed free video (38 minutes), inexpensive video (208 minutes), forthcoming book, and a 50 hour week-end course for concerned citizens.  This is essential education for all–it also demonstrates the fraud, waste, and abuse inherent in the continued support by the two-party tyranny of Wall Street.  Wall Street STILL OWES twice the capital it actually has–the bail-out was a flim-flam to perpetuate the short-term bonuses and positions of the criminals who have looted America and the rest of the world.

Short Free Video

Amazon Page
  • Crash Course by Chris Martenson – 38 minute condensed version
  • DVD Release Date: March 5, 2009
  • Run Time: 203 minutes
Amazon Page
  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 22, 2011)

Phi Beta Iota: In a perfect demonstration of the Hacker Principle that for every piece of information you share, you get back 100 pieces of which 10 are priceless (10:1 noise to signal and 10:1 return on investment), the below was brought to our attention by Dr. James C. Spohrer, Director, IBM University Programs World-Wide (IBM UP), IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA 95120 USA.  We like IBM, we like it even more after seeing that this kind of thinking is well-understood by IBM.  Bottom line: a number of others have sounded the alarm, Chris Martenson does it better than everyone else, in the most concise non-partisan manner possible.  He is the Paul Revere of the Republic, the Commonwealth.

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Journal: Taking a WikiLeak

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence
Jon Lebkowsky Home

Taking a Wikileak

In my obligatory post about Wikileaks as the story du jour, I point to the great set of questions Dan Gillmor has posted in his column at Salon. These are especially lucid. I like especially Dan’s point about the character of the communications that were leaked, that many of the messages are gossip. Journalists are dutifully reporting “facts” gleaned from the leaked material without necessarily digging deeper, verifying and analyzing. Of course, they don’t have time – the information environment moves too quickly, he who hesitates is lost, accuracy be damned.

Then again, journalism is so often about facts, not truth.  Facts are always suspect, personal interpretations are often incorrect, memories are often wildly inaccurate. History is, no doubt, filled with wrong facts and bad interpretations that, regardless, are accepted as somehow “true.”

The high-minded interpretation of this and other leaks, that people need to know what is being said and done by their representatives in government, especially in a “democratic society,” is worth examining. We’re not really a democracy; government by rule or consensus of a majority of the people doesn’t scale, and it would be difficult for the average citizen to commit the time required to be conversant in depth with all the issues that a complex government must consider.

Do we benefit by sharing more facts with more people? (Dan notes that 3 million or so in government have the clearance to read most of the documents leaked – this seems like a lot of people to be keeping secrets… is the “secret” designation really all that meaningful, in this case?) But to my question – I think there’s a benefit in knowing more about government operations, but I’m less clear that this sort of leak increases knowledge vs. noise.

I’m certain about one thing: we shouldn’t assume that the leaked documents alone reveal secrets that are accurate and true. They’re just more pieces of a very complex puzzle.

See Also:

Graphic: Information Pathologies

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Reference: “Human Resources” by Scott Noble

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, History, IO Sense-Making, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform
DefDog Recommends...

From Skilluminati Research [quoting another person]:

Last night I watched Human Resources and I was impressed enough to pass it along. It's a documentary about Social Control, examining the history, the philosophy and ultimately the pathology of elite power. The movie is a full two hours and you can download a copy of the video file right here
(http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FC6BGEOM).

Overall, Human Resources is rough around the edges but still overloaded with gems. Set aside some time to digest this — and take notes.

Scott Noble does an admirable job of fitting ten hours of material into two. I also appreciated the space he gives to all the people he interviews…there's a metric ton of ideas here and he lets almost all of them unfold and breathe at their own pace. The footage itself is very low-fi and some of the interviews feel like they drag on for too long, or wander in circles. Impressively, those moments are few and far between.  Noble can't cover everything, but the scope of this movie alone makes it the most ambitious entry in this strange genre so far, more complete than The Century of the Self and less hysterical than the Zeitgeist franchise.

The film really clicks in the final act, when the focus turns toward the CIA's MK experimentation. I was surprised and grateful to find an extended interview with Dr. Colin Ross, who takes pains to note that “CIA MK” is actually a misleading generalization, obscuring a larger network of projects involving the Army, Naval Intelligence and several other, more opaque agencies. There's a lot of rewindable moments here, tread slowly.

When the perfect documentary about Social Control finally arrives, I'm guessing it will be built on this precise blueprint. This film might be
full of cosmetic flaws, but his argument is (mostly) methodical and devastating. A toast to Scott Noble.

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Reference: Legitimate Grievances by Robert Steele

Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Augmented Reality, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Strategy, Threats

As we all observe with stunning detachment the symbiotic continuance of Bush-Obama Democratic-Republican support to the Wall Street looting of America led by Goldman Sachs, whose executives continue to “own” the Department of the Treasury and the Bank of New York (Federal Reserve), I believe it helpful to itemize some legitimate grievances that could inspire State by State nullification of federal mandates and regulations, and perhaps a few secessions, with Cascadia, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska being well positioned to abandon a compact that no longer serves the United STATES of America, nor We the People.

I am indebted to Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale and founder of the Middlebury Institute, for teaching me about the urgency and relevance of the secessionist movements, and the detailed reflections that they have published, reflections that I point to here for the common good.

LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Domestic)

The Chattanooga Declaration of 2007 (7 Points)

Core Point:  Liberty can only survive if political power is returned from the banks and corporations that have corrupted the federal government, to local communities and States.  The American Empire is no longer a nation or a republic, but has become a tyrant aggressive abroad and despotic at home.

The Burlington Declaration of 2006 (5 points)

Core Point: Any political entity has the right to separate itself from a larger body of which it is a part and peaceably to establish its independence as a free and legitimate state in the eyes of  the world.  Governments are instituted among peoples, deriving their just powers power from the consent of the governed, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the legitimate goals of life, liberty, prosperity, and self-determination, it is the right of the people in democratic fashion to aleter or abolish it, and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The Logic of Secession: Three Tines to a Trident (A Manifesto by Kirkpatrick Sale)

Core Point: In the face of a rigged game in which two parties have conspired to corrupt, manipulate, and generally monopolize power, third party politics will not work.  Only secession will allow for the emergence of a restored Republic once the federal government and its two-party tyranny are made irrelevant (and starved of revenue).

In Defense of Vermont's Secession from the Union (A Manifesto by Keith Brunner)

Core Point:  Vermont was its own country before it joined the Union, and nothing in the Constitution of the United STATES of America precludes secession from this voluntary compact [Lincoln violated the Constitution in multiple ways, most Americans simply have not learned the truth of the matter].  The American Empire is economically, politically, cultural, and especially environmentally unsustainable, and far from fixing itself, is just getting worse.  When a government of people who have no moral authority are in the possession of enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, in the position to dominate the global economy for their own interests, and continually and foolishly pace the needs of the “economic system” above the needs of the natural world, the time for action cannot be put off any longer.

LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Anti-Americanism)

In sound support of the above, I have itemized a list of the behaviors and conditions that have inspired anti-Americanism.  Each is, without exception, a betrayal of the public trust and grounds for abolishing the present political criminal enterprise that has hijacked the federal government and the public treasury on behalf of its banking and corporate masters.   Each of these high crimes and misdemeanors justifying impeachment is derived from one or more works on non-fiction.

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Journal: Mice, Men, Aging, & Policy

11 Society, Academia, Augmented Reality, Earth Intelligence, Methods & Process

Aging Ills Reversed in Mice

Scientists Tweak a Gene and Rejuvenate Cells, Raising Hopes for Uses in Humans

By GAUTAM NAIK

Scientists have partially reversed age-related degeneration in mice, an achievement that suggests a new approach for tackling similar disorders in people.

By tweaking a gene, the researchers reversed brain disease and restored the sense of smell and fertility in prematurely aged mice. Previous experiments with calorie restriction and other methods have shown that aspects of aging can be slowed. This appears to be the first time that some age-related problems in animals have actually been reversed.

Phi Beta Iota: Utterly fascinating in isolation.  However, in the context of the fragmentation of knowledge and the incoherence of policy, this kind of development is frightening in the absence of a draconian move away from stove-pipe and inherently corrupt (again, integrity is about coherence, not honor per se) governance, and toward comprehensive design that nurtures all humans, all minds, all the time.

See Also:

Graphic: Web of Fragmented Knowledge

Reference: 8 Populations, 4 Methods

Reference: 12 Core Policy Domains

Reference: 10 High-Level Threats to Humanity

Review: The Life and Death of NSSM 200 –How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy

Dennis Kucinich, Vice President for the Commonwealth–and Some Details

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Journal: AlterNet on “Beyond Madness”–Patraeus in Pakistan

Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence

‘Beyond Madness': Obama's War on Terror Setting Nuclear-Armed Pakistan on Fire

Rather than seeking to stabilize Pakistan, General David Petraeus has been irresponsibly lighting matches with his shortsighted use of Special Forces and drone strikes

by Fred Branfman

EXCERPT 1:  But rather than seeking to stabilize Pakistan, General David Petraeus has, incredibly, been irresponsibly lighting matches through his shortsighted and relentless effort to secure Afghanistan by using U.S. forces and drone strikes, and pressuring the Pakistani Army to attack Taliban “sanctuaries” in Pakistan’s northwest provinces. Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's High Commissioner to London for the past 16 years and a pillar of the Establishment, has recently stated that U.S. drone and gunship attacks in Pakistan have “set the country on fire” and threatened that such acts could eventually lead to attacks on U.S. personnel in Pakistan.  Petraeus has disastrously miscalculated. The more “progress” he tries to show in Afghanistan, the more he weakens the U.S. position in far more important Pakistan.

EXCERPT 2:  The single most important — yet surprisingly ignored — revelation of Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, is that Petraeus and the Obama team never discussed how their strategy for attacking Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan was weakening the Pakistani state. Woodward also makes clear that it is Petraeus, not Obama, who is driving U.S. policy in “Af-Pak.” CIA Director Leon Panetta declared that “no Democratic president can go against military advice, especially if he asked for it. So just do it. Do what they say,” according to the book. Petraeus’ power derives from America’s unconscious need for a military hero and his perceived and overblown success in Iraq. But this perception has blinded normally sensible observers to his disastrous performance in Pakistan since becoming Centcom commander in October 2008.

Tip of the Hat to John Steiner via E-Mail.

Phi Beta Iota: the author has pulled together a number of linked references and this is a useful article narrowly focused.  He missed the larger picture, the fact that Obama has no strategy and no brain trust (the emphasis being on brains in touch with reality).  Obama will get his Wall Street reward on his present course, but he is neither leading nor serving the nation with his ideologically passive-aggressive incoherence across the board–nothing serious on all ten threats to humanity, nothing serious on all twelve core policies, an intelligence community that is pathologically expensive and ineffective, and a Pentagon that is so out of control as to be a cancer on the public blood, treasure, and spirit.  these are all good people trapped in a bad system–they desperately need a “wake-up call” and we are not sure that is achievable at this point.

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Journal: Free to the Public is new Services Science

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

Library Digitization for Free

November 30, 2010

November 30, 2010 – Treasures of Connecticut Libraries allows libraries to digitize, for free, up to 100 items in their collection, and then to upload their collection to a CONTENTdm site managed by the state library in Hartford. This collaboration is providing a relatively inexpensive model for libraries that want to expand awareness of their collections and demonstrate their value to a wider public.

We found this information on Library Journal in their article, “In Connecticut, a Small Model of Collaboration.” The project now has 26 participating libraries and their partners, and the searchable collection includes historical photographs, maps, postcards, videos and more.

Read full original blog by Marjorie Hlava…

Tip of the Hat to Marjorie Hlava at LinkedIn.