Government – Page 807 – Public Intelligence Blog

Dear Friends:

This is an interesting dialogue I’ve been eavesedropping on..

Cheers,
John

Phi Beta Iota: Others have been on this story for decades–the rest of the world is just now catching on. It is a two-party tyranny–voting for one or the other is NOT an option. What we need is an end to the one party winner take all system. Here's a starting point: Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?

From: John Neffinger

To Drew's point, check out this AP story from a couple days ago, noting that Obama is having trouble selling the Republican talking points he has adopted about how budget cuts that lay people off create jobs by reassuring the business community.

What is new about this moment is that things have gotten so bad, the American people see very clearly that the richest few of us are paying less than ever in taxes and should pay more. Even Republicans know this. David Brooks lashed out at his own party last week for taking its ideological aversion to taxes to a new, cult-like level of irrationality.

But to call them ideologues misses the point. The majority of rank-and-file Republicans admit that taxes on top earners should be higher, and the people calling the shots aren't mere ideologues either. They are running a hugely successful business enterprise. It's not irrational, it's very rational (if not so enlightened). The contributors invest in the politicians and lobbyists, and they make very handsome returns on their investments. To Brooks' question, the reason Washington Republicans won't cut any taxes at all as part of an otherwise very favorable deficit deal is that lowering taxes is the entire point. The concern about deficits is only a charade, just another way to discredit our government. The Republican party is not a cult. The Republican party is a racket.

This might be a moment we could make that point with new clarity. That yes there are honest and well-meaning Republicans all across the country, but their whole party is run as a racket. That Republican politicians are just errand boys, as Colonel Kurtz would say , who work only for the rich conservatives who pay for their campaigns.

Prior emails and other links below the line…

Continue reading “John Steiner: The Political Racketeers”

2011/07/122011/07/12

John Robb: 94% of Rich Fear Riots Calling for their Blood

Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Threats

WSJ: 94% of global millionaires fear riots/unrest in the streets that calls for their blood. As well they should.

Why the Rich Fear Violence in the Streets

Robert Frank

Wall Street Journal, 6 July 2011

EXTRACT:

A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.

Fully 90% of respondents have a negative view of the current global economic climate and 41% say they have little or no faith that the U.S. will be able to right itself in this fiscal climate.

Read full story…

Phi Beta Iota: The super rich have created a global plague of failed states, poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation, thinking governments that they corrupted will take care of it. Not so. Corruption is a super-plague. Integrity is the antidote, M4IS2 is the method by which the super-rich can fund a win-win recovery. They did it once before, addressing public health in New York City. Time for big ideas again.

2011/07/11

Stephen Aftergood: Pentagon Dismisses Presidential Promises of Open Government, Mounts Major Campaign to Control UN-Classified Information

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military

PENTAGON TIGHTENS GRIP ON UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION

In 2005, the U.S. Army issued a new field manual on the military use of dogs, which it said were being “employed in dynamic ways never before imagined.” The field manual was approved for public release and marked for unlimited distribution. See FM 3-19.17, “Military Working Dogs” (pdf), 6 July 2005.

But in May 2011, the same Army manual on military working dogs (redesignated as ATTP 3-39.34) was updated, and this time its distribution has been limited to DoD and DoD contractors only. Public access to the document is barred. At the same time, copies of the unrestricted 2005 edition have been removed from Army websites. (A copy is still available through the Federation of American Scientists web site.)

The net loss of public access to information in this case illustrates a new trend that is at odds with the Obama Administration's declared policy. Although the President promised to create “an unprecedented level of openness in Government,” in practice new barriers to access to unclassified information continue to arise.

Continue reading “Stephen Aftergood: Pentagon Dismisses Presidential Promises of Open Government, Mounts Major Campaign to Control UN-Classified Information”

2011/07/11

DefDog: US Approach to Security Insane?

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)

Anyone who believes we are winning the War on Terror doesn't understand the goals of AQ. They wanted us to be afraid and to spend our money, both of which the government is doing in spades…..one really has to ask, then, who is winning?

Is high security backfiring in U.S.?

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

NEW YORK – As a foreign correspondent for NBC News, I haven’t spent much time in the United States during the last decade. I return only occasionally to check in with colleagues, visit family, or, this last time, to research a documentary for MSNBC.

The documentary, still in the works, is about the Global War on Terrorism, and what it has done to our military, economy and American society in general. Perhaps because the subject was on my mind, I found a recent travel experience especially meaningful.

Through my work I travel to some of the busiest airports in high-risk areas. Just this year I have been in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, France, Italy and many other countries. But I have yet to feel so angry, so embarrassed or so scrutinized as I did going through airport security for a flight from Los Angeles International Airport to New York’s JFK while visiting home.

. . . . .

I’ve watched American troops fight, and sometimes die, to drive the Taliban and al-Qaida from Afghanistan, and to secure free elections in Iraq. They have been fighting for other people to be free. I was horrified to see that despite their sacrifices we’d let ourselves become a nation that appears to be driven by fear.

. . . . .

But at the airport, watching a 7-year-old girl go through a full body scan in public – just so she could fly out of the city of Los Angeles – made me wonder how much we have lost.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: The Founding Fathers do not approve….

Thomas Jefferson: A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.

Thomas Jefferson: Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

James Madison: Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

2011/07/11

Winslow Wheeler: Analysis of House Mood on Defense Cuts

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Below is an important and interesting analysis of John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World of the “mood” of the House on defense issues. I do not agree with all of the characterizations or implications (and I agree with some), but I do believe John (whom I have known professionally with respect for almost four decades) has collected some significant information. From this and other data, I conclude:

1) No one should be surprised at the House' ambivalence on a defense issue like Libya. It has been the hallmark of Congress for longer than I can recall to permit presidents to do as they please internationally while sniping from the sidelines and avoiding taking responsibility;

2) Congress pats itself on its own back for pretending to support frugality in the Pentagon by taking easy votes such as against the second engine for the F-35 (which SecDef Gates successfully painted as a pork program) and against a piece of the DOD funding for military bands (see below). The size of the votes on matters that are actually significant, such as the Barney Frank/Ron Paul and the Mulvaney amendments to cut from $8.5 to $17 billion from the 2012 DOD budget, shows a new high-water mark for budget cutting in the Pentagon not seen in Congress since — by my recollection — in the mid-1980s when the so-called Military Reform Caucus and budget cutters like Chuck Grassley were fully active.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Analysis of House Mood on Defense Cuts”

2011/07/10

DefDog: Wall Street Corrupts Congress Again…

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement

Here we go again….

In a Bill, Wall Street Shows Its Clout

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

New York Times Deal Book, 4 July 2011

Wall Street often tries to play down its influence in Washington. As Congress pushed through financial regulations that seemed to get watered down last year, Wall Street’s chief executives tried to suggest, somewhat surprisingly, that their highly paid lobbyists did not have much sway.

If there is still any question about how much power Wall Street actually has in Washington, here is some fresh evidence worth examining.

In a piece of legislation recently passed by the House and the Senate to revamp patent law, a tiny provision was inserted at the last minute called Section 18.

The provision, which my colleague Edward Wyatt detailed in an article ahead of the House’s vote on the bill last month, has only one purpose: to allow the banking industry to skirt paying for certain important patents involving “business methods.”

The provision even allows “retroactive reviews of approved business method patents, allowing the financial services industry to challenge patents that have already been found valid both at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office and in Federal Court,” according to Representative Aaron Schock, an Illinois Republican who tried to strike the provision.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: In the absence of accountability, holistic analytics, and transparency, it is very easy for specific individuals to give up their integrity. The implications of this are breath-taking: Wall Street is showing it can legislate retrospective and ex post facto crime, not just future crime.

2011/07/092011/10/22

Dolphin: Electoral Rage in Malaysia, Open Insurgency?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government

From a Human Intelligence perspective, below is a very strong signal that the Arab Spring and its “Days of Rage” are spreading; even well-managed countries such as Malaysia (and one speculates, badly-managed ones like the USA) appear to be in line for Electoral Reform protests and perhaps Open Source Insurgency.

Malaysia police fire tear gas, arrest 1,600 at protest

Demonstrators march in defiance of ban, call for electoral reform

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Police fired repeated rounds of tear gas and detained more than 1,600 people in the capital on Saturday as thousands of activists evaded roadblocks and barbed wire to hold a street protest against Prime Minister Najib Razak's government.

Phi Beta Iota: All governments are in the process of collapse as credible sole focal points for governance. None are gearing up for the inevitable emergence of bio-regional hybrid governance networks based on accountability, information-sharing, transparency, and a common interest in sustainable peace and prosperity.

Mark Zuckerberg: What To Do Once People Are Connected

Michel Bauwens: Integrity & Regional/Global Change

Growing Demands for Participatory Democracy

Open Source Insurgency = System Disruption