Category: Communities of Practice

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Egypt’s Perfect Storm: Associated Press Shines

08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence
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Egypt's uprising unites society in rage

(AP) – 5 hours ago

CAIRO (AP) — For Gamal Hassanein, it began with a slap.

The unemployed 24-year-old was arguing with a police officer when the man struck him across the face — a blow that seemed to sting for months.

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“He stole my dignity with that slap,” said Hassanein, who does odd jobs to make money. “We could never stand up to those officers before because we were afraid. But we're no longer willing to be silenced by our fear.”

The tens of thousands of protesters who have thrown Egypt's 30-year-old regime into tumult come from all walks of life — conservative Muslims and Christians, yuppies and the unemployed, young and old. For many, the protests demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down were a catalyst for years or decades of repressed anger at mistreatment at the hands of the state.

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One after another, they describe a moment buried in their memory that came gushing to the surface as they saw others taking to the streets.

. . . . . .

“They are taking us lightly and they don't feel our frustration,” she said. “This is a uprising of the people and we will not shut up again.”

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Read rest of this SUPERB collage of deep insights…..

Phi Beta Iota: Especially noteworthy in this professional piece is the observation that the Muslim Brotherhood, while a key player, is not the whole enchilada–the public has been mobilized across the board by a whole range of preconditions and personal experiences.

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CIA In Egypt: Silence of the Goats

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government
Who, Me?

A never ending goat rope!

What should the CIA do in Egypt?

By Jeff Stein

The ghost of the 1979 Iranian revolution is very much on the minds of veteran intelligence officials as Egypt explodes in street protests.

Most historians agree that the CIA was largely in the dark when anti-American students, radical Islamists and mullahs ignited street protests in Tehran because the U.S.-backed shah had forbidden the CIA to have contact with opposition groups.

Read the rest of this empty article….

Phi Beta Iota: Stein is a low-rent version of Ignatius, and most of his sources rarely have anything substantive to contribute.  This is puffery.  CIA is in the liaison business, not the espionage or the analytics business.  The Safari Club (the fifth CIA that does rendition and torture) is built around Egyptian intelligence officers whose idea of a good time is sodomizing drugged kids and taking photos to turn the kids against their fathers.  Not only is CIA worthless in Egypt and across the region, but the minute they are asked to do something they will out-source it because they have no internal bench–indeed, the place looks like a geriatric ward now, with annuitants all over the place.

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President Barack Obama: Shallow Hypocrite at Best

Cultural Intelligence, Government
Who, Me?

Watching Channel 4 and seeing President Barack Obama speak of his conversation with the Egyptian President, Penguin could not help but be shocked when Obama had the audicity to claim, with a straight face and no shame, that he had called on the Egyptian president to “give meaning to his words” in promising democracy and whatever.

Change we can believe in, anyone?

500 Promises Card Set

Related external links:

2010 The Complete List of Obama Statement Expiration Dates

2009 Obama's trail of broken promises

2009 Barack Obama's broken promises

Truth-O-Meter (Barack Obama)

Obama's Gaffes, Lies, Hypocrisy, Broken Promises & Exaggerations!

Obama's 50 Lies

Phi Beta Iota: Our contributors have almost complete liberty.  The above should not be construed as a personal attack on President Barack Obama (we deleted the links on treason and birth issues), but rather as documentation of how dysfunctional the current system is, completely divorced from the public interest.

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SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Officers Call

SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

by Tom Atlee

Transformational change depends primarily on changing social systems.

A social system — an economic or political system, for example — is how a society is organized.  It is a pervasive and powerful pattern of social arrangements that shapes people's lives and interactions.

Any time we seek to do something with other people, we run into the structures, processes, institutions, technologies, and beliefs of our dominant social systems.  These then powerfully shape and channel our efforts.

If we want to get or give a product or service, we have to use the economic system — which in the dominant form usually involves money, buying and selling.  If we want to change a law or a war, we have to use the political system — which in the dominant form usually involves fighting against those who oppose us and convincing politicians we have votes or dollars to influence their next election.

Whenever we try to do something with others, we have to use the existing systems — or else create new systems that those other people will use with us.

. . . . . . .

The only way to change this, to reduce this habitual co-creation of messes, destruction, suffering, apathy, insanity and catastrophe, is to change the social systems that create them — or, more accurately, change the social systems that cause US to co-create these problems over and over and over again.
Continue reading “SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE”

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Shihab Rattansi lays bare US hypocrisy on Egypt

07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Officers Call
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

The 7 minute video at the link below is painfully embarrassing to watch, but it is quite revealing with regard to the dysfunctionality of our foreign policy and the state of decay in the U.S. mainstream media.  Chuck

http://pulsemedia.org/2011/01/27/shihab-rattansi-lays-bare-us-hypocrisy-on-egypt/

Al Jazeera International is head and shoulders above all competitors in the MSM and Shihab Rattansi is by far the best news anchor currently on air. There is much journalists could learn from him. In the following interview with PJ Crowley watch Rattansi straitjacket the usually slick US State Department spokesman with relentless questions about the difference in US responses to Tunisia and Egypt and the applicability of pronouncements made in one instance to the other. Crowley appears disappointed that Rattansi is unwilling to abide by the convention of Western MSM which requires a newsman to take an evasion as a cue for moving on to a different subject.

See Also:

Reference: Empire of Lies & Secrecy

Reference: Lying is Not Patriotic–Ron Paul

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Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Threats

NIGHTWATCH Complete Report for 28 January 2011

Jordan: Protesters across Jordan called for the government to step down. In Amman, more than 5,000 marched. Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans, blamed the government for rising prices and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai.

Egypt: Today was the Day of Rage and so it has been. Roughly an hour after Friday prayers, the demonstrations began in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria, then spread and continued into the night. Buildings were set alight; curfews ignored and the Army moved in. The night closed with President Mubarak's mildly concessional speech which promises to incite the protesters, more than placate them. Expect more confrontations on 29 January.

Special comment: Background. Research and analysis of more than 50 internal instability episodes since 1980, NightWatch has tracked order in what appears to be chaotic security situations. Once internal discontent metamorphoses into a breakdown of public order, the government begins searching for a set of responses that will halt the decline in its fortunes. A government will follow a three-phase cycle in applying different ideas and resources alternately to placate or crush an insurrection or to buy time to try to find “a line it can hold.” That phrase refers to a set of actions over an expanse of national territory that will stabilize internal conditions.

If the government finds a set of responses that match the protestors' grievances, the downward cycle can be halted. If not, it will continue until the government falls or is changed, usually by the Army, the ultimate guardians of the state.

Below the line: complete NightWatch analytics, followed by comment on Davies J-Curve and Power of the Powerless.

Continue reading “Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!”

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Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

Al-Jazeera's Revolution?

For all the talk about hashtags and Facebook, al-Jazeera is the primary vector of this democratic infection. Most Tunisians first learned of the early protests in Sidi Bouzid from al-Jazeera. Egyptians watched the overthrow of Ben Ali on al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera broadcast the Egyptian mass demonstrations to the Yemenis. Social media may be important pathways for secondary infection, but this is an al-Jazeera revolution.

‘We are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution'

Today's Arab revolution is no less significant than those that preceded it in recent decades in Eastern Europe and Latin America. This time, Arabs are not being led by their leaders — from colonialism to pan-Arabism or Islamism or any other “ism” — as was the case in the past.

Propelled by the young and the digital revolution, citizens will demand nothing less than the right to choose and change their representatives in the future.

Continue reading “Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…”