Category: Civil Society

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Mobile + Micro-Volunteering

11 Society, Civil Society, Gift Intelligence, microfinancing, Mobile, Non-Governmental

It seems as though we've also entered a phase of “micro”. From micro-phones and micro-processors to micro-loans, micro-giving, micro-blogging, and  micro-volunteering. (How will “nano” fit into this?)

Problem:
73% of Americans do not volunteer (2007 US Dept Labor).
Root Cause:
Most volunteer opportunities require vetting, many hours, and a long-term commitment. It’s akin to a second job. For most people, the process is inconvenient, takes too much time, and doesn’t easily fit into hectic lives.Our Theory of Change: Americans have spare time – billions of hours – but in small windows of idle moments: sitting in an airport, waiting in a doctor’s office, riding the bus to work, and more. If we can reach people during these spare moments we harness a huge pool of untapped human energy.To harness micro spare time we must reach people via mobile, but until recently, mobile phones were limited.

The arrival of smartphones like iPhone (with Internet, graphics, camera, GPS, video, audio, and more) created enormous possibilities. 115 million smartphones were sold in 2007 with projections of 700 million by 2012 (WashPost, Aug 2008).The Extraordinaries is smartphone software that allows millions of volunteers to perform tasks on their smartphones in just a few minutes. We make volunteering feel like a video game to encourage repetition and competition. People login to our system from any place on Earth within cell reception, and constructively use small windows of spare time for science, medicine, nonprofits, government, and more. Nearly anything you do on a regular computer you can do on a smartphone.

You can help:
-Translate micro-finance loan applications (Kiva).
-Transcribe subtitles for human rights videos (Witness).
-Immigrants improve their English (Phone ESL).

(I'm sure you can think of many more possibilities)

Also see this list from Time Magazine

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Journal: OUT OF CONTROL–The Demise of Responsible Government “Intelligence” III

Civil Society, Government, Law Enforcement, Media, Military

Message from sender:

I am sure they do see a threat. If the Pentagon were not engaged in such a broad spectrum of illegal and corrupt practices wikileaks would not be seen as such a threat.

Phi Beta Iota: We ran this story earlier, but now that the New York Times is running it, it merits emphasis in conjunction with the other two “OUT OF CONTROL” posts.  The Pentagon is nuts on the inside and criminal on the outside”  They have lost sight of their mission, their roots within the Republic, and their responsibility to be responsible.  Wikileaks, in sharp contrast, is an non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public.

Pentagon Sees a Threat From Online Muckrakers

By STEPHANIE STROM    March 18, 2010

WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information that governments and corporations would prefer to keep secret, published an Army report about itself.

To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.

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Journal: Michael Moore to Replace Rahm Emanuel in WH?

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence
Full Story: New WH Chief of Staff

And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.

Gone.

Gone, baby, gone.

I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter — not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care “f***ing retarded.” Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up!

Phi Beta Iota: The Huffington Post is consistently negative on Rahm Emanuel, and with good reason.  Between his partisan ideology and David Axelrods ignoring the 70% of the eligible voters that did not vote for President Barack Obama, the White House is completely out of touch with reality and literally has no intelligence (decision-support) on ANYTHING.   The government is BROKEN.  Click on the photograph to read the full satirical piece.

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Journal: Stronger Signals of Armed Anger in USA

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Peace Intelligence
Armed Resistance in USA

There is a new nation-wide movement striving to innoculate the National Guard as well as state and local police forces against illegal orders from the Pentagon and the White House.  The basic loyalty to the Republic Oath elements are below.  This comes in reaction to three distinct tangibles and one unverified but provocative intangible that are circulating with increasing urgency among those who fear the two-party tyranny and a blindly-obedient Pentagon:

1)  Haliburton prison camps on US soil

2)  FEMA discussions with various state and local law enforcement agencies about “federalizing” state and local police in case of a “national” emergency

3)  Document said to be circulating within Washington on the prospects of an armed rebellion within the USA (we think secession and nullification much more likely, with armed resistance only if the federal government stupidly tries to use force against state and local resistance.

4)  Unverified but from a Special Forces source with eyes on and unblemished integrity: multiple US military camps, one in Washington State and one in Alabama, among other locations, at which battalion size units of foreign troops (men without a country) have been kept in isolation, armed and trained, for contingency use within the USA.  The same source says there is a long running PSYOP profiling program to identify for contingency need those  US military personnel who would be willing to disarm US citizens if ordered to do so.

Never thought we'd get to this point.  Visit the site above for a closer look.  This is a movement Of, By, and For We the People, and it has very strong West Point, retired USMC, and National Guard support. In our view, the US military itself is beginning to realize the topsy-turvy nature of the morphing of the Global War on Terror (which is a tactic, not a target) into a War on Liberty right here in America. As we have long maintained, it is vital that our military personnel remember that Integrity is about loyalty to the Constitution, not to the chain of command.

OATH KEEPERS: ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people

3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control.”

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies. 10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

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Journal: False Consciousness, False Government?

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Policies
Chuck Spinney

My good friend Werther has been beavering away again in the US manure pile and this time has resurrected Engels' theory of False Consciousness to help explain the mismatch between ideology and reality that has become enshrined in contemporary American political psychology.

Full Story Online

False Consciousness

By Werther*

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.”

— Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

EXTRACTS:

Or so the conventional wisdom.

Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation has written an interesting refutation of that widely held notion. [1] He asserts that the last 30 years' of so-called free market doctrine have not aided, but rather retarded the cause of small business. Intriguingly, he cites, but does not expand upon, the following finding: “One recent study, based on data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, placed the United States second to last out of 22 rich nations in the percentage of workers who run their own businesses. Only Luxembourg ranked lower.”   . . .

Lynn argues that a key inflection point in government policy towards small business came in 1981, when the Reagan administration essentially stopped enforcing anti-monopoly and small business-protection statutes.

Phi Beta Iota: Reagan, whom we generally admired, also busted labor with his unconstitutional use of the military to break the air-traffic controller strike.  We ureg one an all to read the entire Op Ed and the three linked references.  American anti-intellectualism and American delusion are cresting at precisely the time we need ground-truth, truth at any cost.

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Journal: Individual Dignity & Collective Defense

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, Civil Society, Law Enforcement, Mobile, Tools

Full Story Online

Google execs convicted in Italy for Down syndrome video

MILAN (Reuters) – A Milan court convicted three Google Inc executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with Down's syndrome by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.

Phi Beta Iota: The Italians made a mistake.  Instead of using the video to aggressively convict the bullies of the Down's syndrome boy, they are shooting the messenger.  This is just as ignorant and ill-advised as the police trying to criminalize Twitter  texts and cell phone video of police brutality.  The right of the people to bear witness cannot be undermined by the courts, IOHO.