Civil Society – Page 192 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/10/142011/10/17

Koko: Teacher Burns Herself to Death in Playground

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call

Koko Signs: Koko sad. Governments fiddle, people burn.

Teacher dies in France after setting herself on fire

An apparently depressed maths teacher in southern France has died after setting herself on fire in the playground of her secondary school.

Students and teachers rushed to help the woman, 44, after she doused herself with petrol during morning break and set herself alight.

Read full story.

Phi Beta Iota: The USA has already had one veteran burn himself to death, while 18 a day are committing suicide (and in Iraq, more die from suicide each month than from combat). The US Government is very, very sick of mind, lacking soul and heart, completely divorced from reality and integrity. A couple of soccer moms are next–are you ready?

He may be an example of what is to come – people throwing themselves violently up against the system in order to bring it down.

G.I. Wilson: Killer Drones, Moral Disengagement, + War Crimes RECAP

Joseph Stiglitz: The True Cost of 9/11 — Includes 18 Veteran Suicides a Day

2011 Thinking About Revolution in the USA and Elsewhere (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

2008 The Substance of Governance ELECTION 2008 Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Review: Shooting the Truth–The Rise of American Political Documentaries

2011/10/142011/10/17

Tom Atlee: OWS Bumpy Road – Chaos, Order, and New…

11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

Occupy Wall Street's brand new bumpy road – Order, chaos and a new world

Below is a slightly edited excerpt from an email written by a group facilitator participating in one of the urban Occupy actions (name withheld at their request). Their note reveals an emerging difficulty that could undermine the ability of such actions to hold their position and succeed in their mission. I then offer some thoughts on chaos and order that I hope will help them (and us all) deal well with such issues in these times of transition.

Following all that, I offer some new Occupy links, with excerpts from the linked articles. I hope you enjoy them.

Blessings on this remarkable journey.

Coheartedly,
Tom

Read full post with comments and links.

2011/10/142011/10/17

John Robb: Bloomberg Cleaning Out OWS

09 Justice, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government

BLOOMBERG VS. OCCUPY

New Rules from Zucotti ParkMayor Bloomberg is moving to shut down Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Square tomorrow at 7 AM.

The ruse he is using: the need to clean the “park.” He has promised that Liberty Square will be reopened after the cleaning but nobody will be allowed to set up anything in park, nor will sleeping bags be allowed (click the sheet to the left for larger version).

bloomberg notice — Click on Image to Enlarge

This is going to get interesting. Will be working up some ideas for how this could play out. Let's start off with an assumption. This is Bloomberg vs. Occupy. One mind vs. many minds. The goal is to coerce him into changing his mind. Dissuade him. Get inside his OODA loop.

Go straight for him. Maximize the eviction's taint on Bloomberg's personal brand. Personalize the protest/eviction by attaching the blame to him personally. Pierce his shield of bureaucratic impersonality. Brand the eviction with the name: Bloomberg. This is/will be a global stage, use it.

Confuse him. Lots and lots of Flash Mobs. Shut down bridges and major streets. Overwhelm with volume/speed. Non-violent disruption. As soon as police arrive in force, disperse and reassemble at new location. Bikes + Kids. Disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. More flashmobs = more disruption. As long as the square is under attack, keep the city tied in knots. NOTE: If they lock down the area, flashmobs are the best way to participate (and get some exercise).

Connect with more people than him. Best way to do this: Eyes in the sky. Get a camera/cameras above Liberty Square. Stream the feed. The better the quality the more impact it will have. It will play across the world. Think about how important AJs video feed over Tahrir was when things got hot. Better yet, get AJ to cover it and stream it.

If you have additional ideas, add them below. Good training in tactical thinking.

Hoisted from the comments:

The flashmob tactic was tried here in Panama couple of years ago by the SUNTRACS construction workers union, and with very small groups pre-planted all over the city they drove the police absolutely crazy. Police would show up at location A, mob would disperse immediately, two text messages and now TWO flashmobs would block streets at different locations. They never followed up with it (preferring massive marches to display force) but it worked very well and with much less people than #ows has available. [courtesy: Okke]

2011/10/132011/10/17

John Robb: How to Create an Occupy Tribe

Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

JOURNAL: How to Create an Occupy Tribe

There's no question that the Occupy groups have done a great job with constructing the outlines of resilient communities in the heart of many of our most dense urban areas.

People pitch in to do work. They are considerate despite the difficulty of the arrangement. Food gets served. The area gets cleaned. There is entertainment. There's innovation (equipment, tech, workarounds). There is education (lots of seminars being taught). There is open, participatory governance. All of this is great and this experience will definitely pay off over the next decade as the global economy deteriorates, panics, fails. It will make building resilient communities easier (there are lots of ways to build a resilient community, we're trying to document all of the ways how on MiiU).

However, is this experience building a tribal identity? An Occupy tribe? Something that can eventually (there's lots to do in the short to medium term) go beyond protest and build something new? One even strong enough to create new resilient economic and social networks that step into the breach as the current one fails?

How to Manufacture a Tribe

How do you manufacture a strong community that protects, defends and advances the interests of its members? You build a tribe. Tribal organization is the most survivable of all organizational types and it was the dominant form for 99.99% of human history. The most important aspect of tribal organization is that it is the organizational cockroach of human history. It has proved it can withstand the onslaught of the harshest of environments. Global depression? No problem. (for more, see: Tribes!)

To build a tribal identity, the Occupy movement will need to manufacture fictive kinship. That kinship is built through (see Ronfeldt's paper for some background on this) the following:

Continue reading “John Robb: How to Create an Occupy Tribe”

2011/10/122011/10/29

Robert Steele: Electoral Reform in a Box (DIY Kit)

03 Economy, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Hacking, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Office of Management and Budget, Strategy

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

SHORT-CUT

http://tinyurl.com/ER-DIY

I fear that everyone is losing the perfect opportunity to demand electoral reform. Here is what I have done on this with zero traction. Based on discussions in NYC I have dropped the Coalition Cabinet for now and am focusing only on Electoral Reform, but if we really are to change this system, an Independent candidate with a Coalition Cabinet has to defeat BOTH Obama AND the Republican challenger. I don't see that emergent at this point.

My Interpretation of the Emerging Message:

CORRUPTION is the common enemy, both in government and in the private sector.

ELECTORAL REFORM is the singular demand.

SUNSHINE CABINET is the method.

INTEGRITY is the core value.

COMMONWEALTH RESTORED is the outcome.

Pertinent Documents for Consideration (Links Repaired 2011-10-25)

#OWS #ElectoralReform Strategy Memorandum

#ElectoralReform #OWS Two-Sided Demand Hand-Out

Electoral Reform Working Group Preliminary 2 Pages (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

lectoral Reform Statement of Demand 3.2 (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Electoral Reform Act of 2012 3.2 (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

Robert Steele: Working Papers for NYC 6-7 Oct 2011

2011/10/122011/10/12

Mini-Mi: Top 5 Facts About America’s Richest 1%

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

The Top 5 Facts About America’s Richest 1%

VIDEO

The American dream is alive and well for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, but unfortunately, if you are in the other 99% the jury is still out.

“America is obviously a country where you can go from being middle class to upper class, but right now class mobility has sort of collapsed in the United States,” says Zaid Jilani, senior reporter for the progressive think tank ThinkProgress.org. (See: America's Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts)

This grim reality is in part the impetus for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which, now in its fourth week, will take to the streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side Tuesday in what it is calling the “Millionaire's March.” Demonstrators will rally outside the homes of some of the city's wealthiest, including News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, to protest New York state's 2% millionaire tax set to expire at the end of the year.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, The Daily Ticker wanted to find out just how rich America's super-rich 1% really is. Jilani recently compiled the following research, entitled How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent of Americans.

As discussed in the accompanying interview, here's what Jilani outlined on his blog:

Continue reading “Mini-Mi: Top 5 Facts About America's Richest 1%”

2011/10/122011/10/12

Koko: Participatory Budget Takes Root in USA

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government

Participatory Budgeting – A Method to Empower Local Citizens & Communities

“Participatory Budgeting” (PB) is a process that allows citizens to decide directly how to allocate all or part of a public budget, typically through a series of meetings, work by community “delegates” or representatives, and ultimately a final vote. It was first implemented in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1990, and has since spread.

PB has recently taken root in Canadian and American soils.

Chicago’s 49th Ward, for example, uses this process to distribute $1.3 million of annual discretionary funds. The ward’s residents have praised the opportunity to make meaningful decisions, take ownership over the budget process, and win concrete improvements for their neighborhood – community gardens and sidewalk repairs to street lights and public murals. The initiative proved so popular that the ward’s alderman, Joe Moore, credits PB with helping to reverse his political fortunes.

The wave is not stopping in Chicago, either. Elected officials and community leaders elsewhere – from New York City to San Francisco and from Greensboro, N.C. to Springfield, Mass. – are considering launching similar initiatives.

Sources:

“Government can’t solve budget battles? Let citizens do it.” Daniel Altschuler and Josh Lerner, The Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2011.

“Chicago’s Participatory Budgeting Experiment” Nicole Summers, Shareable. April 6, 2011.

Student Researcher: Allison Holt, San Francisco State University

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows, San Francisco State University