Category: Civil Society

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Journal: 10-Year Old Questions Pledge of Allegiance

04 Education, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Full Story Online
Boston Globe Full Story Online

10-year-old refuses to say Pledge of Allegiance until everyone has equal rights

Lylah M. Alphonse November 23, 2009

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy is refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school until our country does a better job of living up to its ideals.

“I looked at the end and it said ‘with liberty and justice for all.' And there really isn't liberty and justice for all,” Will Phillips told CNN recently. “Gays and lesbians can't marry. There's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world.”

You know what? I think he's got a great point.

Phi Beta Iota: As featured on the Colbert Nation Show.

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Journal: Afghanistan

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Civil Society, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Pentagon preparing to send 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, official says

CNN   November 24, 2009

Pentagon planners expect orders to send about 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a defense official told CNN, a day after the president's final meeting to decide the next moves in Afghanistan.  The military has planning under way to send three U.S. Army brigades, totaling about 15,000 troops; a Marine brigade, about 8,000 troops; a headquarters element, about 7,000 troops; and between 4,000 and 5,000 support troops — a total of approximately 34,000 troops, according to a defense official with direct knowledge of Pentagon operations. CNN reported last month that this was the preferred option within the Pentagon.

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Cynthia McKinney Letter to the President

Please bring our troops home now.

A peace demonstration is being organized for December 12, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally, also known as the End US Wars Rally, is scheduled for 11am at Lafayette Park at the White House. I wholly endorse this rally and encourage all who can to participate in Washington, DC or to help a local peace organization committed to ending U.S. wars on that date.

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Journal: Christopher Ketcham Reflections…

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics
Christopher Ketcham Home
Christopher Ketcham Home

Christopher Ketcham has written for Vanity Fair, Harper’s, GQ, the Nation, Salon, Mother Jones, Men’s Journal, Good Magazine, Radar, National Geographic, Hustler, Penthouse, Maxim, FHM and many other magazines, newspapers and websites. He divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Moab, Utah, where he writes more poetry than is publishable or readable. In 2002, he was selected as a Livingston Awards finalist for his Salon.com coverage of the 9/11 attacks in New York. In 2004, he published a book of poetry about September 11, which Norman Mailer declared “the best book I never got. Can you re-send?” A 2006 article in New York Press, “The Dogs of Gowanus,” has recently been optioned for a feature film.

1)      Time Magazine recently ran a profile on the 2nd Maine Militia, which is headed up by the wonderful novelist (and all-around sweet-hearted lady) Carolyn Chute (check out her most recent book, The School on Heart’s Content Road).  Choice line from one of the 2nd Mainers at their annual meeting: “Fuck America.  What have they done for us lately?  Let’s cut the United States loose and let it drift downstream.” Indeed.

2)      For those of you dosing on the swine flu vaccine, see “Swine Fools” in CounterPunch.

3)      CounterPunch also found the space to publish my profile of ex-CIA operative Bob Baer, the veteran Middle East case officer and author whose books became the basis of the film Syriana.  See “Unlearning the CIA”.  A sample:

Continue reading “Journal: Christopher Ketcham Reflections…”

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Review: Common Sense–the Way Back

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Reform
Amazon Page
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Patriotic Love and Common Sense For All
November 21, 2009
Felton Williamson, Jr.
By remarkable coincidence, Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life just came out, jumped to the top of my ‘waiting to read” stack, and includes the phrase “Commonsense Conservative” is featured in that book. Combine it with Richard Branson's “Gaia Capitalism” and you have the makings of something special.

This book is short (123 pages), easy to read, and an inspiring patriotic labor of love, a gift to all of us who care deeply for American the Beautiful and are confused and/or angry about all that has been done “in our name” by the festering cesspool of Washington-based politicians and senior bureaucrats who live to claim budget share (inputs) rather than deliver public service (outputs).

The author provides the single best, most complete, and most sensible demarche against EARMARKS that I have ever seen. Included are eight illustrations and I will list them here because they capture the essence of this book's common sense:

Continue reading “Review: Common Sense–the Way Back”

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Event: 7-10 Jan 10 University of Washington Journalism That Matters Pacific Northwest as Petri Dish for Emergent Citizen-Oriented Journalism

Civil Society, Collaboration Zones, Media
Event Details
Event Details

Across the United States, the media ecosystem is quickly evolving. Some main-stream news organizations are shrinking, as advertising decouples from journalism. Remarkable new technologies and the work of committed citizens are making it easier for us to build unique communities that share civic passion and purpose.
In the Pacific Northwest, this evolution is proceeding rapidly.

Join some 150 editors, writers, broacasters, bloggers, producers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, educators, students, digital entrepreneurs, media activists, community journalists, public advocates and public-policy experts for, “Reimagining News and Community in the Pacific Northwest.”

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Journal: Sarah Palin Loses the Lipstick

05 Civil War, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Full Story Online & Video
Full Story Online & Video

A guide to who gets whacked

Andy Barr, Jonathan Martin – Tue Nov 17

Sarah Palin may claim to scorn elites, but her new book will ring familiar to its Beltway readership.

Getting even with those who crossed her, praising her allies and generally putting a self-serving sheen on last year’s presidential campaign, “Going Rogue” is typical of the political memoir genre of recent vintage. It’s the sort of book that will send the political class scurrying to bookstores, eager to see how they fared in what’s known as “the Washington read.”

With no index, though, Palin’s book has made that ritual more difficult.

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

So POLITICO, having obtained a copy of the book before its Tuesday release, has created a reader’s guide to “Going Rogue,” grouping the many characters into three categories: Friends, Foes, In Between.

Below the Fold we provide a commentary and links to a number of books about the prospects for honest independent government in 2012 and beyond.

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Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up

04 Education, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Analysis, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military

Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)
Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)

NIDAL MALIK HASAN OF VIRGINIA TECH, BETHESDA, AND FORT HOOD: A MAJOR PATSY IN A DRILL GONE LIVE? By Webster G. Tarpley 14 November 2009

What Hollywood Can Teach Us About the Fort Hood Massacre Christina News Service, Friday, November 13, 2009 By Chuck Muth

Most Americans have this whole Fort Hood massacre all wrong. Maj. Nidal M. Hassan was not a terrorist.  And he wasn’t a mass murderer.  And he may not even have been a coward.  Maj. Hassan was an enemy combatant.

A Man in a Hundred By ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch Weekend Edition November 13-15, 2009

The general obviously doesn’t have Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on his bedside table. Gibbon wrote flatly that the introduction of foreigners “into Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary and more fatal.”

Is Fort Hood Really a “Tragedy?” Pajamas Media by Victor Davis Hanson November 14, 2009

Something has gone terribly wrong in the entire reaction to the Ft. Hood massacres, as evidenced by the media, the administration, the military authorities, and perhaps the public at large.

Continue reading “Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up”