Reference: Lying is Not Patriotic–Ron Paul

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Movies, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Videos/Movies/Documentaries, YouTube

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Several truths, nine questions.

Phi Beta Iota: Here are the questions as asked:

01 Do the American people deserve to know the truth regarding the on-going war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen?

02 Could a larger questions be how can an Army private gain access to so much secret information?

03 Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange the publisher and not our government's failure to protect classified information?

04 Are we getting our money's worth from the $80 billion dollars per year we are spending on intelligence gathering?

05 Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths? Lying us into war, or WikiLeaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

06 If Assange can be convicted of a crime for information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the First Amendment and the independence of the Internet?

07 Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

08 Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death, and corruption?

09 Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

2010/12/102010/12/10

Reference (2): Income Inequality in the USA

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

It is becoming increasingly clear that the United States passed through some kind of fork in the economic road in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and has now landed on onto an evolutionary pathway toward some kind of decline. The questions of what interplay of chance and necessity created the turning movement in the pathway of socio-economic evolution, how enduring that new pathway is, or where it is leading no one can answer; but with the advantage of hindsight, it is becoming empirically clear that most of the adverse economic trends of de-industrialization, deregulation, increasing debt, a collapsing trade balance, the stagnation of real wages, rising income inequality, etc., took a systemic turn for the worse during the five years between 1977 and 1982.

Attached are two reports (in pdf format) on one aspect of anatomy of decline: rising income inequality. They build on the seminal research (which can be downloaded here and here) of Professors Emanuel Saez's (Univ. of Calif. Berkeley) and Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), which quantified and analyzed the size, nature, and effects of rising income inequality in the United States.

The first report has been prepared by the democratic majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress and therefore may be discounted by some as partisan — to those readers inclined to dismiss this report, I suggest that they compare its results of the Saez-Piketty analyses before jumping to any conclusions.

The second report is a non partisan analysis produced by Frank Levy and Peter Temlin of Industrial Performance Center of MIT.

Reference A: The Senate Report (2010)

Reference B: The MIT Report (2007)

Journal: Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction All Lies?

Journal: Rug Mechants & Tax Traps

Reference: Wall Street Does NOT Produce Value

Journal: Deficit Reduction Plan Hoses Everyone BUT the 10% at the Top

2010/12/102011/10/22

Journal: Michael Lind–Nobody Represents the American People

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Policies

Topic:

Populism

Nobody represents the American people

By Michael Lind

Many Americans have come to the conclusion that nobody represents them in Washington anymore. They are right.

This situation is not the result of a sinister conspiracy by a single, unitary, all-powerful and diabolical elite. The origins of the disconnect are structural. The mass membership organizations that once represented ordinary Americans at the state and national level have been replaced by elite organizations that raise their money from a small number of billionaires rather than hundreds of thousands or millions of dues-paying members.

Phi Beta Iota: This is the first time we have seen this important idea presented so plainly. GroupOn might yet help solve the problem. What is clear is that the Internet has spawned the fragmentation of groups even further, without offering something like GroupOn that could bring them all back together issue by issue–this was the reason Earth Intelligence Network was created, to be a proponent for a World Brain and EarthGame that could connect all people with all relevant information, and in this way enable informed participatory democracy across multiple boundaries–Panarchy, the opposite of Anarchy. Electoral Reform is an important first step, but as the full article suggests, the public desperately needs some vehicle for representing all of the people all of the time.

2010/12/10

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran/NKorea Rockets for Venezuela

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence

Venezuela-Iran: Die Welt is the original source for the following item, which is too important to overlook.

“Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on unidentified western sources, according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, on 25 November. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on 19 October 2010.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran/NKorea Rockets for Venezuela”

2010/12/072010/12/08

Journal: Barack Obama, Colin Powell, and National Security

Budgets & Funding, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Will Colin Powell become Barack Obama's next Pentagon chief?

Toby Harnden, The Telegraph UK

4 December 2010

– – – – – – –

Obama's most important decision you haven't heard about — Pentagon leaders

Richard H. Kohn, Christian Science Monitor

6 December 2010

Breaking Down Obama's Cabinet Contenders (2008)

Brian Montopoli, CBSNews

6 November 2008

Phi Beta Iota: The most important decision Barack Obama faces is the fundamental one of whether he wants to lead a government that works for all, or continue to be a meaningless placeholder in the theater of the absurd. Electoral Reform is the only thing that matters at this point. Absent Electoral Reform, his mid-term Cabinet appointments will be meaningless–business as usual. Colin Powell is as good as it gets if he can reframe his sense of loyalty back to the Constitutional Oath and actually down-size the Pentagon program by a third or more, while shifting $200 billion a year to State, where Senator Chuck Hagel would be well qualified to get the place back to evidence-based policies and coherent strategic planning. Commerce is a big one–Clyde Prestowitz would be our recommendation, along with Joseph Stiglitz to Office of Management and Budget–see our Virtual Cabinet at Huffington Post. However stellar the appointments, nothing they do will matter absent fundamental Electoral Reform and a restoration of the integrity not only of the US executive policy process, but of the legislative deliberation process as well. Only Electoral Reform can create an honest representative Congress. There are many other critical changes to be made at the highest levels, but ONLY in the context of a restoration of the government being Of, By, and For We the People. Obama is one single piece of paper away from greatness. We observe with interest.

2010/12/072010/12/07

Journal: Sam Adams and WikiLeaks

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Law Enforcement, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Policy, Reform

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 7, 2010
4:00 PM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Ex-Intelligence Officers, Others See Plusses in WikiLeaks Disclosures

WASHINGTON – December 7 – The following statement was released today, signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Frank Grevil, Katharine Gun, David MacMichael, Ray McGovern, Craig Murray, Coleen Rowley and Larry Wilkerson; all are associated with Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in. The people listed below this release would be pleased to shed light on these exciting new developments.

How far down the U.S. has slid can be seen, ironically enough, in a recent commentary in Pravda (that's right, Russia's Pravda): “What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic … After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …”

So shame on Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and all those who spew platitudes about integrity, justice and accountability while allowing war criminals and torturers to walk freely upon the earth. … the American people should be outraged that their government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.

Continue reading “Journal: Sam Adams and WikiLeaks”

2010/12/072010/12/07

Review (DVD): The Most Dangerous Man in America–Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 6 Star Top 10%, Censorship & Denial of Access, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Corruption, Crime (Government), Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Government, History, Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Media, Methods & Process, Military, Military & Pentagon Power, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Actors: Daniel Ellsberg, Patricia Ellsberg, Tony Russo, Howard Zinn, Hedrick Smith
Directors: Judith Ehrlich;Rick Goldsmith

Stunningly Relevant Today and Always

December 7, 2010

I completely missed the release of this film in July, and stumbled on it while picking movies for a sick son.

It opens with Henry Kissinger, since demonstrated to be a war criminal, calling Daniel Elsberg the most dangerous man in America, and lamenting the release of secret documents (that ultimately proved government perfidy). Fast forward to WikiLeaks as a sequel to the 935 documented lies led by Dick Cheney.

Continue reading “Review (DVD): The Most Dangerous Man in America–Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”