Category: Government

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First Interactive Graphic Novel for iPad is about CIA’s involvement in Iran (1979)

04 Education, Corruption, Government, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Misinformation & Propaganda, Mobile, Open Government, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Technologies

Operation Ajax tells the true story of the CIA’s involvement in the Middle East and the roots of the modern American conflict with Iran.

Experience history through the eyes of a nameless protagonist, whose identity was redacted from declassified CIA records, as he recalls the dramatic and real events he was involved in with heads of state, covert agents, and underground political activists.

Inspired by the investigative journalism of best-selling author Stephen Kinzer and his work “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror“, Operation Ajax is an original story.

Operation Ajax is the first nonfiction narrative that takes you into a new immersive graphic entertainment experience, designed for the iPad from the ground up. It was debuted at Event: 18 Jan, NYC Society for Ethical Culture – Iran Hostage Crisis 30th Anniversary Meets WikiLeaks – All-Star Panel

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: China Moves In on North Korea

02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Strategy

North Korea-China: North Korea will develop the islet of Hwanggumpyong on the Yalu River Delta linking Sinuiju with the Chinese city of Dandong as a special economic zone in cooperation with Chinese businessmen, Chosun Ilbo reported 18 January. North Korean Cabinet already approved a law on the development that will be announced in March or April.

Comment: This is another example of Chinese business tutelage for North Korea. All other special economic zones have either failed for lack of investors or been troubled by North Korean government meddling. In the last category are the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast and the Kaesong joint industrial park, north of Panmunjom.

One would surmise that a joint venture with the Chinese would be relieved of the unpredictability of North Korean leadership whims, which have undermined the profitability of the joint ventures with the South Koreans. More importantly, every Chinese economic lifeline tossed into the North Korean economic morass is a burden on China and a restraint on North Korea.

The Chinese are moving slowly, but steadily based on their understanding of the magnitude of North Korean economic mismanagement. Thus far, they appear to be helping North Korean enterprises that have prospects of profitability, such as textiles, and Chinese enterprises that benefit from North Korean geography, such as ports and infrastructure on the Sea of Japan.

North Korea never has been self-reliant and its condition of dependency on the global economy has steadily deepened under Kim Chong-il. The Chinese appear determined to salvage what they can and rebuild the rest of North Korea in a different, more sustainable direction, slowly, by converting some North Korean activities into extensions of China's economy.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The Chinese are out-thinking and out-maneuvering the USA on all fronts, and in a fascinating twist, may be egging the USA on to the same military-industrial death march that led to the end of the Soviet Union.  The above development should be studied in relation to WASHINGTON RULES: US-Korea-China-NK NAFTA.  In both instances, leaders are making strategic moves for reasons they consider valid, but that have nothing to do with the well-being of their respective publics.

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WASHINGTON RULES: The Revolving Door Continues

07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

… in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac

ps … good report, notwithstanding the fact that Politico is one of those slimy publications that thrives on the bottom-feeding cocktail circuit of Washington, which is funded by … who?

Obama administration's revolving door

By: Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico

January 18, 2011 04:43 AM EST

Candidate Barack Obama repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail that working in his administration would not be “about serving your former employer, your future employer or your bank account.”

But with his administration at its midpoint, a traditional time for personnel turnover, it’s clear that despite Obama’s avowals, a longtime truism of Washington life — that a prestigious-sounding administration post can be a lucrative career enhancer — remains unchanged.

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunesia & USA Politics

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Phi Beta Iota: If one reads the Winner Take All Politics book review by Retired Reader first, and then the analytic comments here, one is struck by the raw nearly identical nature of the corrupt politicians and the dysfunctional political system.  Third World America, indeed.

Tunisia: Politics. The Speaker of the Parliament is the new temporary President of Tunisia, in accord with the constitutional succession and as announced by Prime Minister Ghannouchi two days ago.

Local television broadcast on 17 January the formation of the new government — the national unity government. The cabinet includes the defense, finance and foreign ministers when Ben Ali was president. Three leaders of opposition parties are included in the cabinet for the first time.

Prime Minister Ghannouchi created three high-level panels, for political reform, to investigate the recent violence and to investigate reform. He also ordered political prisoners released.

Security

Some gun shots were fired on the 17th but the worst of the fighting occurred over the weekend when Army soldiers and armed citizen groups fought gun battles with Presidential guards from the Ben Ali regime.

The government announced that 78 people died in the past week of violence.

About 1,000 protesters who assembled near the Interior Ministry called for the ruling party to relinquish power. News services reported the protesters chanted: “Out with the RCD!” and “Out with the Party of the Dictatorship!”

Comment: The government appears to be in transition from a strong presidency to a government led by parliament. The Prime Minister, not the temporary president, is leading the political metamorphosis. The announcement of a unit government has quieted conditions in Tunis, by most accounts, but its adequacy and genuineness are questionable.

The uprising was not fundamentally political and not a challenge to authority, until the government made it such. The demonstrations primarily were about economic conditions – the price and availability of food, according to contacts in Tunis, and unemployment, according to the international press. As yet the new government has made no statements about its plan to tackle either.

In other words, the mismatch between public grievances and government remedies portends more unrest that may yet usher in a revolution – a change of government system not just a change in the head of government. At this point no revolution has occurred. The leaders of the pre-existing regime are maintaining themselves in office and that looks like political deception. [Emphasis Added.]

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunesia & USA Politics”

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Review (Guest): Winner-Take-All Politics–How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned its Back on the Middle Class

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Amazon Page

Paul Pierson and Jacob S. Hacker

5.0 out of 5 stars Political Economy

January 17, 2011

Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

This book is an effort by two political scientist to explain how in the last thirty years or so wealth in the U.S. has become concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller number of people. The fact that this has occurred is indisputable. So is the fact that the gap between the richest Americans and everybody else has grown exponentially just as the U.S. middle class is gradually disappearing. The explanation of why this has occurred offered by Hacker and Pierson is rather more controversial.

They begin by noting that over the last thirty years not only have the already rich gotten much richer, but that the U.S. National Economy has been transformed into a system that no longer serves the interests of the once broad and thriving American Middle Class that once was the backbone of that economy. In their view the system now serves the interests of a small minority of the rich and very rich (one to five per cent of the population). So their book begins by asking how and why did this occur and why over the last thirty years?

Since Hacker and Pierson are political scientists not economists, they argue that this transformation was due to political, not economic factors. Using what appears to be accurate statistical data they cite three `clues' or factors that point to what happened to the U.S. economy: 1) hyper-concentration of wealth; 2) sustained hyper-concentration; and 3) during the thirty years under study, while wealth concentrated at the very top of the income scale, the economy essentially stopped working for the middle and working classes who continually lost ground during this period.

This economic transformation in favor of the rich they argue is not the result of impersonal economic forces but of deliberate government actions or at times inaction (drift). Their central thesis is that mostly incremental government policies over the last thirty years have had the cumulative effect of changing the U.S. economic system into a `winner take all' system heavily biased in favor of the rich and very rich. At the same time federal government policies undermined the traditionally strong labor unions that served as a counter weight to corporations' power and systematically deregulated financial markets and executive compensation.
Continue reading “Review (Guest): Winner-Take-All Politics–How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned its Back on the Middle Class”

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Event: 18 Jan, NYC Society for Ethical Culture – Iran Hostage Crisis 30th Anniversary Meets WikiLeaks – All-Star Panel

Ethics, Government, History, Military

Online promo flyer with graphics from Cognito

Who: Author Stephen Kinzer, Grand Theft Auto Director Navid Khonsari, Newscaster Amy Goodman, Emmy-nominated Mike de Seve, Columbia University Chair of Iran Studies Hamid Dabashi

Where: 2 West 64th St. & Central Park West, NYC, (New York Society for Ethical Culture)

When: Tuesday, January 18, 2011, 7 p.m.

CONTACT: Natalia Mount, Natalia@mountrehbein.com (315) 440-5036

New York, NY, Jan. 12, 2011 – This January 20 marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the Iran Hostage Crisis, when students and militants imprisoned 52 Americans in Tehran for 444 days. The event will occur two days before the anniversary, on Tuesday, Jan. 18th at the Society for Ethical Culture, 2 W. 64th St. at 7:30 pm.

To commemorate the 1981 event, New York Times veteran and best-selling author Stephen Kinzer (All the Shah's Men) joins Amy Goodman and Columbia's Dr. Hamid Dabashi (Chair, Iranian Studies) to re-examine this historic incident, and discuss its impact on current events.

Contributing: Media and tech pioneer Daniel Burwen, founder of Cognito Comics and publisher of Operation Ajax (an interactive iPad app about the crisis' roots); Emmy-nominated Ajax author Mike de Seve; and eBook innovator Harold Moss of FlickerLab. They'll present breakthrough ways history can be brought to new audiences in today's wired world.

Continue reading “Event: 18 Jan, NYC Society for Ethical Culture – Iran Hostage Crisis 30th Anniversary Meets WikiLeaks – All-Star Panel”

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