Communities of Practice – Page 1057 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/12/04

Theophilis Goodyear: Equal Voice! Break the Corporate Mega-Media Dictatorship by Reintroducing the Wagner-Hatfield Amendment

07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Commerce, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, InfoOps (IO)

Equal Voice! Break the Corporate Mega-Media Dictatorship by Reintroducing the Wagner-Hatfield Amendment

The Wagner-Hatfield Amendment was a proposed amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, sponsored by senators Robert F. Wagner, Democrat, of New York and Henry D. Hatfield, Republican, of West Virginia. The amendment would have reserved 25% of all radio stations for non-profit radio broadcasters, including universities. The amendment was enthusiastically supported by educators. Of course it was vigorously attacked by the for-profit radio lobby.

The amendment almost passed but was defeated. If the amendment were reintroduced and passed, it would effectively break the corporate mega-media monopoly. Universities would be more likely than corporations to give alternate voices a chance to be heard.

Using the internet to challenge the corporate mega-media view of things is an admirable use of the internet. But why should we accept that inherent disadvantage? Reintroduce the Wagner-Hatfield amendment and pass it, and the disadvantage will disappear overnight. There were no TV stations when the amendment was proposed. But today it would have to include them to be fair. If universities had their own TV stations they could reach far more people than the average blog. And if they had of had equal access to media since 1934, American history might be quite different.

“Equal Voice” should become an issue of emergent democracy. The average voter doesn't have an equal voice even with their elected representatives, because campaign contributions talk louder. And media outlets have an even louder voice than politicians, who are limited to C-SPAN and periodic coverage by mainstream media of things like press conferences and State of the Union addresses. The public voice is effectively stifled by the arrangement.

No. Equal voice needs to mean equal access to media! That's the only way voters will ever be able to effectively challenge a system that is stacked against them. All we need is a little volume so that our voices can be heard as loudly as the collective voice of mega-media corporations. The Wagner-Hatfield amendment might be just the crowbar we need to pry an opening in the iron wall of corporate mega-media control and give disenfranchised American voters the voice they have long been denied.

2011/12/042012/02/06

Marcus Aurelius: Col Paul Yingling, Departing

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Military, Officers Call

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

I've never met COL Yingling, but he is somewhat famous (infamous?) within the Army. He has survived his earlier article, provided second below, and even gotten promoted, apparently recently. So now he's sitting in a somewhat idyllic spot, specifically Garmisch, a couple of years short of qualifying to retire as a colonel. He's again frustrated and, as he explains first below, is punching out in a few months to teach social studies. I don't know where he's going to teach, but, having served as a high school teacher, I'm not sure it's going to be the attractive situation seems to be expecting. I wonder how he'd feel after some experience teaching in places like Washington, DC or Baltimore and dealing with genuinely irrational parents.

Phi Beta Iota: Another Marine Corps Colonel, Walter J. Breede III, USNA 1968, made the same choice. When you have integrity to the nth degree, you cannot live with the cognitive dissonance that comes with drinking the kool-aid. Below in complete full text online are both Col Yingling's new article, and his original article on “The Failure of Generalship.” Click on his photo for access to his biography and other publications.

Washington Post, December 4, 2011
Pg. B2

Why I'm Leaving The Military For A Social Studies Classroom

Army Col. Paul Yingling says he would rather teach kids than advise generals

I'm a colonel in the U.S. Army, and next summer I will retire to teach high school social studies. My friends think I'm crazy, and they may have a point.

Colonel is the last rank before general's stars, and it comes with significant perks. My pay is triple the national average teacher's teacher salary. Military budgets have doubled over the past last decade, while school districts have slashed funding, increased class sizes, cut programs and laid off teachers. The social status accorded to the military is wonderful, while teachers are routinely pilloried by politicians and pundits for student outcomes that are often driven by events and conditions far beyond the schoolhouse door.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Col Paul Yingling, Departing”

2011/12/04

David Swanson: 70 Years of Lies About Pearl Harbor

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Military, Officers Call

70 Years of Lying About Pearl Harbor

By davidswanson

WarIsACrime.org, 04 December 2011

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's fervent hope for years was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in targeting of submarines as it had been doing. Of course, Germany's declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor and the immediate U.S. declaration of war on Japan, helped as well, but it was Pearl Harbor that radically converted the American people from opposition to support for war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had tried lying to the American people about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. And yet, the people of the United States didn't buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the “unexpected” attack — he had secretly ordered the creation of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.

Continue reading “David Swanson: 70 Years of Lies About Pearl Harbor”

2011/12/042012/12/16

Thomas Briggs: No, China Does Not Have 3,000 Nuclear Weapons (Nor Does CIA Have Clandestine Assets Anywhere Relevant)

02 China, 10 Security, Academia, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Here is another posting related to this topic to balance the earlier piece from the Washington Post.

No, China Does Not Have 3,000 Nuclear Weapons

A study from Georgetown University incorrectly suggests that China has 3,000 nuclear weapons.The estimate is off by an order of magnitude.

By Hans M. Kristensen

EXTRACT:

According to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, China has produced an estimated 2 tons of plutonium for weapons. Some has been consumed in nuclear tests, leaving roughly 1.8 tons. The estimate is consistent with what the U.S. government has stated and theoretically enough for 450-600 warheads.

Total production of HEU is thought to have been approximately 20 tons. Some has been spent in nuclear tests and research reactor fuel, leaving a stockpile of some 16 tons. That’s theoretically enough for roughly 640-1,060 warheads.

Another critical material is Tritium, which is used in thermonuclear weapons. China probably only produces enough Tritium at its High-Flux Engineering Test Reactor (HFETR) in Jiajiang to maintain an arsenal of about 300 weapons.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2009 that China likely has produced enough weapon-grade fissile material to meet its needs for the immediate future. In other words, no vast warhead expansion is in sight.

DefDog: DHS Comedy of Errors on Water-Pump “Hack”

10 Security, Corruption, DHS, Government, IO Impotency

If there is ever a story to validate the reduction of spending in the
intelligence community, this would be it……….

Exclusive: Comedy of Errors Led to False ‘Water-Pump Hack’ Report

It was the broken water pump heard ’round the world.

Cyberwar watchers took notice this month when a leaked intelligence memo claimed Russian hackers had remotely destroyed a water pump at an Illinois utility. The report spawned dozens of sensational stories characterizing it as the first-ever reported destruction of U.S. infrastructure by a hacker. Some described it as America’s very own Stuxnet attack.

Except, it turns out, it wasn’t. Within a week of the report’s release, DHS bluntly contradicted the memo, saying that it could find no evidence that a hack occurred. In truth, the water pump simply burned out, as pumps are wont to do, and a government-funded intelligence center incorrectly linked the failure to an internet connection from a Russian IP address months earlier.

Read full article with two photos.

More reporting on this event, with some detail showing the lack of “intelligence” within this intelligence activity…….

America's critical infrastructure security response system is broken

Following SCADA water utility ‘hack', is the reporting system in need of re-thinking?

By Ellen Messmer | Network World US | Published: 16:01, 02 December 2011

The flap over the reported water utility hack in Illinois begs the question: Is the reporting system that the US has set up to identify cyberattacks on critical infrastructure broken and in need of re-thinking?

Read full article.

2011/12/04

John Robb: War with Iran Very, Very Close

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

WAR with IRAN? It's closer than you think….

Israel's hawks are VERY close to manufacturing a full scale war with Iran. On Monday the 28th of November, it used special operations forces (referred to below as the “Hand of God”) to blow up a portion of an Iranian Nuclear facility near Isfahan (confirmed by satellite imagery). This follows on the heels of another explosion at Tehran facility that killed an Iranian general.

What's even more worrisome is that Israeli hawks are actively claiming responsibility for this sabotage (from the Times of London):

Dan Meridor. the Israeli Intelligence Minister, said: “There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Major-General Giora Eiland, Israel's former director of national security, told Israel's army radio that the Isfahan blast was no accident. “There aren't many coincidences, and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it's the hand of God”
A former Israeli intelligence official cited at least two other explosions [that we haven't heard about] that have “successfully neutralised” Iranian bases associated with the Shahab-3, the medium-range missile that could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead. “This is something everyone in the West wanted to see happen,” he added.

Ok, let's put this into perspective:

These claims are blood in the water. Israel's hawks see Iran as an existential threat to Israel. They WANT a war with Iran. This is an attempt to make that war happen.
The US, from President Obama on down, are incapable of reigning Israel in. Israeli hawks are now operating open loop (without restraint).
Iran's anger at these attacks, demonstrated by an attack on the UK embassy in Tehran, is just the start. Who knows what they will do next? Iran's hawks are likely frothing at the mouth too.

What does this mean? A war with Iran would:

Cause an immediate energy shock. Oil prices shooting through $200 + a barrel. Lost production from Iran, Iraq, and most of the monarchies. A potential loss of 6-10 m barrels a day?
Global depression deepens. Prices over $150 cause immediate recessions. Higher than that, who knows? Usually, a slow down in economic activity reduces demand, however with peak oil (we hit the max the world could produce a couple of years ago) and lost production from the Middle East, that price could remain high even in the face of a deep, deep economic depression.
Networked Resilient Communities. Nobody is going to save you. You need to prepare by building or moving to a resilient community that produces most of the energy and food it needs to survive.

2011/12/042011/12/14

Josh Kilbourn: Why Retail Investors Should Flee Stocks

Commerce, Corruption

An interesting read.

A Hedge Fund Insider Explains Why Retail Investors Should Flee The Stock Market

Regular readers know that ever since 2009, well before the confidence destroying flash crash of May 2010, Zero Hedge had been advocating that regular retail investors shun the equity market in its entirety as it is anything but “fair and efficient” in which frontrunning for a select few is legal, in which insider trading is permitted for politicians and is masked as “expert networks” for others, in which the government itself leaks information to a hand-picked elite of the wealthiest investors, in which investment banks send out their “huddle” top picks to “whale” accounts before everyone else gets access, in which hedge funds form “clubs” and collude in moving the market, in which millisecond algorithms make instantaneous decisions which regular investors can never hope to beat, in which daily record volatility triggers sell limits virtually assuring daytrading losses, and where the bid/ask spreads for all but the choicest few make the prospect of breaking even, let alone winning, quite daunting. In short: a rigged casino.