The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Being read in Europe.
UN Report Documents Torture, Police Violence in US
EXTRACT
While this remains a closed book to the American political establishment, the report underscores the seamless connection between military violence overseas and militarized police violence at home — though its criticisms are couched largely in racial terms.
Three weeks ago the Fairfax County Park Authority destroyed a perfectly good footbridge built by the Miller Heights Neighborhood Association over a decade ago, one of three that enabled hundreds of people and their dogs to walk the full length of the stream trail, with views of running water and birds, including our neighborhood heron, that are priceless.
Today that bridge is being rebuilt by the Park Authority and we have temporarily brought to a half the destruction of all footbridges across the County. The old policy still in force considers footbridges built by citizens (peasants with no standing under the old mind-set) to be encroachments as well as potential safety and legal liabilities.
Below, with photographs, I tell the story of how nineteen citizens, aided by interest from the Boy Scouts of America, were able to get their footbridge back and stop — at least for a time — a very destructive policy. This is a story about re-inventing democracy. How the story ends for the County at large is not yet clear but right this minute, the Chairman (Sharon Bulova), the Park Authority, the Scouts, and our engaged citizens all look good — if this goes as I hope, we will create a new national standard in hybrid governance for stream trails, anchored in a new Scout Trailkeepers Program and perhaps even a new Eagle Scout merit badge, while taking Homeowner Associations (HOA) on a political test drive, focused on substance and divorced from the two-party duopoly that could care less about citizen grass roots rights and concerns.
Continue reading “The Footbridge at Fairfax County — Reinventing Democracy”
The more research I do on GMOs, the less the immediate problem seems to be the seeds, and the more it seems to center on the toxins used to protect the seeds, and the costs associated with this industrial chemical model of agriculture. Here is the latest.
Study Shows Dramatic Correlation Between GMOs And 22 Diseases
As crops that use the herbicide glyphosate rise, so do a wide range of diseases.
EXTRACT
The deep corruption of government is putting the health of the American people at serious risk.
The research highlighted below, “Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America,” was published in The Journal of Organic Systems this September and links GMOs to 22 diseases with very high correlation.
Physical space and ‘Occupy’ tactics: a new trend in civil resistance?
Given the importance of broad, diverse, and sustained participation, it remains to be seen whether movements have been doing themselves a favor or a disservice by allowing themselves to be defined by the site of occupation or by the tactic itself, and not by political and social claims on behalf of those whom they represent.
Phi Beta Iota: Occupation is a means of demanding a specific change (this is where Occupy failed — it has no specific change to demand). The only specific change needed to restore the integrity of any government is Electoral Reform — all eleven points, not the half-baked “get money out of politics false panacea.
See Also:
CounterPunch: Where is Jesse Ventura When You Need Him?
Radical new economic system will emerge from collapse of capitalism
Political adviser and author Jeremy Rifkin believes that the creation of a super internet heralds new economic system that could solve society’s sustainability challenges
EXTRACT
What about the concern that the end of capitalism would lead to chaos? Rifkin believes the gap left by the disappearance of major corporations will be filled by the nonprofit sector.
ROBERT STEELE: Rifkin is brilliant at the fad level and we are lucky to have him as a voice that the public can hear. Where he falls flat is in relation to holistic analytics, true cost of production, and open source everything engineering. Anyone who can say that business has succeeded wildly in lowering the costs of production is clearly out of touch with the true cost of production.
See Also:
Analytics @ Phi Beta Iota
Open Source @ Phi Beta Iota
True Cost @ Phi Beta Iota
Politics in the Time of Low-Information Voters
Did America Really Shift to the Right?
by HARVEY B. FEIGENBAUM, Counterpunch, WEEKEND EDITION NOVEMBER 21–23, 2014
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This is one of the best and most unvarnished assessments of what is happening in the United States I have read in some time. I urge you to read it and think about what it is saying.
Conclusion: Slow Growth and Inequality are Political Choices. We Can Choose Otherwise.
Phi Beta Iota: Joseph Stiglitz is a designated member of the Coalition Cabinet at We the People Reform Coalition.
See Also:
Where is Jesse Ventura When You Need Him?
