The big deficit facing the U.S. is mostly Republican in origin, the Congressional Budget Office says. The Bush tax cuts alone have added $3 trillion in red ink, yet the party wants to double down on its failed policy.
By Mike Lofgren
June 26, 2011
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Polarization based on juvenile talk radio sloganeering is dragging this country to the cliff's edge. If neither the Democrats nor the party I have served for three decades is willing to act like adults, perhaps it's time for a party that is willing to step into the void.
The great part about starting out small, simple, and a little cheesy is that it can only get better from there. Using that logic, my friends and I have launched a wiki called Miiu (pronounced me-you). Miiu is a visual wiki. Essentially, a catalogue of things (products, tools, etc.) and places (homes, businesses, gov't buildings, etc.).
To start off, our goal is to do what lots of people have asked me to create: a wiki that catalogues everything related to resilient communities. We'd like to create a visual catelogue of the things (from DIY solar stills to an inventory of homes, farms, businesses in your community) that will be useful in the development of resilient communities.
Lulzsec has some claims to being an open source insurgency. It operated as a foco by generating a plausible promise: its hacks were high profile and successful, proving that it's possible to successfully attack/damage all big organizations despite the billions they spend on computer security. This promise has also generated copycats/clones around the world. Finally, it is now disbanding (forgoing any formal leadership role). If they can disband in a way that lets them escape unscathed, that only adds to the promise. Quote from their website:
“For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.”
Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).
Phi Beta Iota: Based on in-country reporting from Cynthia McKinney and others, we are quite certain that it is NATO that is committing the war crimes, and the rebels who are genociding black Libyans. We are equally certain the International Tribunal does not have a clue in terms of validated intelligence (decision-support) and therefore conclude that in this instance the warrants lack legitimacy and credibility and are an act of state–similar to the act of state against Martin Luther King; the act of state that sanctioned Israeli murder of US personnel aboard the USS Liberty; and the act of state that told 935 lies to create an elective three trillion dollar war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Florida group is calling on state lawmakers to enact a law “against state-sponsored perversion and oppression” in the wake of an aggressive TSA patdown of a diapered 95-year-old woman at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.
Phi Beta Iota: This is real simple. State by state, nullify the TSA and administer security as a state function. If the federal government does not like that, secede from the Union. TSA is not blocking flights from Europe or anywhere else that are fortunate in not having to put up with what passes for security in the USA.
The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.
That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.
Phi Beta Iota: It is always helpful to remember Medard Gabel's graphic on the cost of peace versus war. For what we have spent on the military-industrial-intelligence complex these past ten years, never mind the legalized fraud of Wall Street, we could have eradicated the ten high-level threats to humanity. The US Government lacks both intelligence and integrity. Good people trapped in a very bad system–we need to set them free. An nation's best defense is an educated citizenry that pursues a foreign policy of peace and commerce with truth and trust as core value and core outcome.
Phi Beta Iota: We asked Col Stu Herrington, USA (Ret), Army counterintelligence officer/interrogator with successful interrogation experience in three wars, what he thought of the matter of General Patraeus opening the door on torture, and here is what he thinks–we have to concur.
Most patriotic thing we can do is NOT taking down the US Government.
All three of those are big lies.
Let's rebuild the dream.
Van Jones
In the coming weeks, people all across the country will come together for American Dream house meetings. Let's talk about what a new American Dream looks like and commit to stand together to make it happen.
Find an American Dream house meeting near you. We want YOU to be part of this movement, from the very beginning.
Libya, Amnesty questions the Hague‘s findings: Are the rebels making up claims of mass rape?
