Category: Communities of Practice

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Winslow Wheeler: Media Plays Dead for Panetta Virus

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Winslow Wheeler

Yesterday, the Nieman Watchdog journalism group at Harvard asked me to evaluate how well the press is scrutinizing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Basically, it's not; instead, Panetta seems to be free of informed, skeptical questioning; he must be absolutely delighted with the treatment he is receiving.

Why is the press ignoring Panetta's frenzied rhetoric and data-free myths?

The defense secretary likens budget-cutters to Nazis and makes assertions that simply aren't true — but the media don't seem to care, writes Winslow Wheeler.

The silence in the press about the overheated rhetoric and dubious myths from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta makes for a very unhappy comparison of today’s defense journalism compared to previous eras when, for example, SecDef Casper Weinberger was the subject of serious critical analysis.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Leon Panetta, like Bob Gates before him, is a posturing pimp for the military-industrial complex that pays 5% bribes to get 95% discounts on the taxpayers treasure.  He could not stand up to fifteen minutes on the same stage with any one of us–Chuck Spinney, Winslow Wheeler, Ralph Peters, Bob Scales, etcetera.

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Robert Steele: US Secret Intelligence Next Steps

Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Ethics, Government
Robert David STEELE Vivas

Responding to a media request for comment on Stephen Aftergood's post, Intelligence Community Anticipates Budget Cuts:

“The US secret intelligence community is long overdue for a draconian reduction of its budget from the $80-90 billion a year today that it wastes on contractors producing vaporware, to something closer to the $20 billion a year that Jim Woolsey is on record as saying would be sufficient, and for once I agree with him.”

“General Tony Zinni is on record as saying that when he was in charge of the US Central Command, the secret intelligence community provided, ‘at best' 4% of what he needed to know.  The fact is that the secret world is primarily a means of transferring wealth from taxpayers to corporations and banks–it not only lacks intelligence, it lacks integrity.”

“Two books sum up the sorry state of the secret world today–No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence, and Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.

Continue reading “Robert Steele: US Secret Intelligence Next Steps”

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Gordon Cook: On the State of Economics – An Exchange Dedicated to #OWS and Society Achieving a Broader Understanding

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Gordon Cook

Here is the final paragraph from an essay by John Kay titled

The Map is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics

The preposterous claim that deviations from market efficiency were not only irrelevant to the recent crisis but could never be relevant is the product of an environment in which deduction has driven out induction and ideology has taken over from observation.  The belief that models are not just useful tools but also are capable of yielding comprehensive and universal descriptions of the world has blinded its proponents to realities that have been staring them in the face.  That blindness was an element in our present crisis, and conditions our still ineffectual responses.  Economists – in government agencies as well as universities – were obsessively playing Grand Theft Auto while the world around them was falling apart.

to which I responded

What we are up against

A refreshing reminder of the staid mechanistic approach of so-called market-efficient economics. Good for the status quo as used to explain to the world WHY the Masters of the universe are in charge. I'm not sure how many of the deans of business schools and Harvard economics professors are prime advocates. But I imagine a substantial amount remembering the interviews that Ferguson did in the documentary Inside Job. They get very well rewarded for being apologists for the current system.

But I would like to take off from this point and try 500,000 foot summary of some of the issues. I am not sure how many people really understand the nature and the reasons for our problems I have a stack of books on my porch more than 3 feet high that I've read since 2008 attempting to grasp it. It is only with the addition of the latest by Nicholas Shaxson called Treasure Islands Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens that I feel I have made really significant progress.

Whether it is possible for the occupy movements to create among their followers and the wider public at large an understanding of the situation, I'm not sure. But I suspect that short of violent revolution which has never been a positive accomplishment–the only way forward is to formulate this broader understanding.

Continue reading “Gordon Cook: On the State of Economics – An Exchange Dedicated to #OWS and Society Achieving a Broader Understanding”

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Chuck Spinney: Evolution in the USA, Israel as Leech

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Chuck Spinney

Evolution in the USA

Below is a very interesting essay analyzing the evolution of culture, economics, and politics in United States.  Other authors have done similar types of analyses, but this one has some interesting twists.  It is a synopsis of a book just written by the author that blends together aspects of cultural, geographic and even religious anthropology, with history, politics, and political economy in a way that illustrates obvious synthetic potential of using GIS (computerized Geographic Information Systems) in efforts to evolve our understanding of history, political economy, anthropology and patterns of cultural evolution in general.  The author ends on a shallow political note, laying out a counter-Tea Party strategy, but don't let that crassness turn you off from the larger intellectual possibilities implicit in this kind of work.

A Geography Lesson for the Tea Party

Click on Image to Enlarge

 

Even as the movement’s grip tightens on the GOP, its influence is melting away across vast swaths of America, thanks to centuries-old regional traditions that few of us understand.

By Colin Woodard, Washington Monthly,November/December 2011

Read full article (five screens).

See: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

See Also: Nine Nations of North America

And a second contribution today:

United States needs to reevaluate its assistance to Israel

Walter Pincus

Washington Post, 17 October 2011

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DefDog: Drones Kill US Forces – Once Again, BAD IDEA

Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military
DefDog

This unconnected, dispersed approach to intelligence has never worked and this is a clear example of its failure.  When one tries to do intelligence remotely, using technological means, one looses the “native atmospherics” that often tell more about what is going on than any sensor.

U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says

The Pentagon says Marines in Afghanistan and the crew controlling the drone in Nevada were unaware analysts watching the firefight via live video in Indiana had doubts about the targets' identity.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Leon Panetta has no idea what he is doing – just another naked ignorant mini-emperor going through the motions.  All of us with intelligence and integrity have been pointing out that situational awareness comes from humans in the situation, not crews half the world away chugging a soda and morally disengaged; and bandwidth costs more than pilots.

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Winslow Wheeler: Two Myths (Lies) from Leon Panetta

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Office of Management and Budget, Officers Call
Winslow Wheeler

Panetta's Frenzied Rhetoric Is Not Stopping the Decay of U.S. Forces

Huffington Post, 14 October 2011

Before Tuesday this week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had been sprinkling Washington D.C. with words like “doomsday mechanism,” “catastrophic,” and “shooting ourselves in the head” to describe any cuts in the Pentagon's budget beyond the $450 billion over 10 years (overall a 4 percent reduction) he and President Obama have already committed to. Panetta had set a new standard for overheated rhetoric to defend the Pentagon's budget.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Panetta, like Gates and others before him, is a political toad incable of telling the truth or pursuing the public interest.  He is telling two major lies in all of his speeches: 1) that cutting the defense budget will weaken national security; and 2) that what we pay $1 trillion a year (in borrowed money) for is “the finest fighting force in the world.”  Not so less the infantry, which is 4% of the force, takes 80% of the casualties, and receives 1% of the budget.  In an honest government, Panetta would be impeached–and all his senior generals and senior executive sychopants retired.

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Graphic: Government Executive Cuts 1 Trillion Over Ten Years – Still Borrows a Trillion a Year

Budgets & Funding, Government
Click on Image to Enlarge

Source

Marcus Aurelius

Phi Beta Iota:  This  is the idiot's solution.  It assumes that we can continue to borrow $1 trillion a year during the ten years over which this $1 trillion will be cut.  The ignorance and hypocrisy of the entire Washington world, including all the NGOs and niche publications, cannot be under-stated.