Communities of Practice – Page 922 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/12/08

SchwartzReport: Bill Moyers and Former FCC Commissioner — Big Media Dumbs Down Democracy, Internet at Very Beginning of Its Possibilities

Former FCC Commissioner: Big Media Dumbs Down Democracy

By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company

05 December 12

EXTRACT 1:

Moyers: The argument we hear in rebuttal is “Well look, we don't have to worry about monopoly today, we don't have to worry about cartels today, because we have the Internet, which is the most democratic source of opinion, expression and free speech that's available to us. You and Moyers are outdated because of your concerns about broadcasting and newspapers and all of this.”

Copps: I don't buy that argument at all. The Internet has the potential for all of that. The Internet has the potential for a new town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks. But it's very, very far from being the reality. The reality is – and you don't have to really look too closely – throughout history, we've seen every means of communication go down this road toward more and more consolidation. Wouldn't it be a tragedy if you took this potential of this open and dynamic technology, capable of addressing just about every problem that the country has – no problem that we have doesn't have a broadband component to its solution somewhere along the line – and let the biggest invention since the printing press probably as communication goes, morph into a cable-ized Internet? That's what I think is happening. Most of the news generated on the Internet, is still coming from the newspaper newsroom, or the TV newsroom. It's just there's so damn much less of it because of the consolidation that we've been through, because of the downsizing, and because of a government that has been absent without leave from its public interest responsibilities for many, many years – a better part of a generation now.

EXTRACT 2:

Moyers: On this particular decision now under consideration, the relaxation of some rules prohibiting further concentration, what can ordinary people do?

Copps: Well, they can get involved. It can become a grassroots movement. I spent 40 years in Washington, working on policy with the belief that you can do some good things from the top down, and I still believe that. But the real systemic reforms and the substantive reforms in this country, from abolition to women's rights and civil rights, and labor rights and all that, came from the bottom up. And I think there's enough frustration out there that it's possible to build on that right now.

Read full transcript.

2012/12/072012/12/07

Dolphin: Autism Up, Sperm Down

07 Health, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Idiocy

Connecting the dots….isn't that what intelligence is supposed to do?

Why Is Autism So Drastically on the Rise? An Environmental Horror Story

An investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting — and terrifying.

If horror is your genre, environmental writer Brita Belli’s The Autism Puzzle, is the book for you. Her terrifying look at the chemicals we eat, drink and breathe is guaranteed to make your hair stand on end.

We should thank her for it.

Statistics released earlier this spring by the Centers for Disease Control revealed that one in 88 U.S. born toddlers has an autism spectral disorder—from the less severe Asperger’s Syndrome to the so-called classical form of the ailment. Worse, it’s not just a North American phenomenon; Belli also reports a 57 percent spike in Asia and Europe.

Read full article.

Russian men: an endangered species?

Continue reading “Dolphin: Autism Up, Sperm Down”

2012/12/072012/12/07

Mini-Me: Obama Approves CIA War on Syria, CIA & Arabs Arming Islamic Militants Instead — But Wait, Could This Be Smoke Related to Benghazi-Based Acts of War on Syria?

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Media, Military

Huh?

New York Times: Arms Shipments ‘Secretly’ Approved by Obama Admin. Ended Up in Hands of Islamic Militants

Jason Howerton

The Blaze, 5 December 2012

U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands

By JAMES RISEN, MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

New York Times, December 5, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats.

. . . . . . .

“To do this right, you have to have on-the-ground intelligence and you have to have experience,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser who is now dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, part of Johns Hopkins University. “If you rely on a country that doesn’t have those things, you are really flying blind. When you have an intermediary, you are going to lose control.”

Read full article.

Tip of the Hat to Jaimi Miller and Richard Byrd at Google+.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Obama Approves CIA War on Syria, CIA & Arabs Arming Islamic Militants Instead — But Wait, Could This Be Smoke Related to Benghazi-Based Acts of War on Syria?”

2012/12/07

SchwartzReport: Local and Regional Restructuring of the American Continent

07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence

Here is an excellent analysis of an important aspect of the Great Schism Trend: the move to localism, and regionalism.

This “Chapter Fourteen” is part eighteen of Truthout's continuing series of excerpts from Gar Alperovitz's “America beyond Capitalism.”

nine nations — Click on Image to Enlarge

The Regional Restructuring of the American Continent

By Gar Alperovitz, Democracy Collaborative Press | Serialized Book

truthout.org, Thursday, 06 December 2012 10:44

Americans committed to a renewal of democracy are likely to discover this can only be meaningfully achieved in units of scale smaller than a continent, but also of sufficient size to be capable of substantial semiautonomous functioning: the region.

The Pluralist Commonwealth model attempts to deal seriously with long-standing arguments that the sheer continental size of the United States and its very large population are ultimately inimical to a robust system-wide vision of democratic practice. Community-oriented strategies appear to be within the range of realistic political possibility in coming years. What of the larger and seemingly utopian idea that much more far-reaching – indeed, radical – decentralization is both necessary and possible?

Five major considerations suggest that, contrary to conventional assumption, the logic of regional restructuring is likely to become of increasing importance as the twenty-first century develops. These include trends in Supreme Court and congressional decision making; an explosion of state-based initiatives; the impact of global political-economic forces on the current federal system; very large-order projected changes in the economy and population; and new trajectories of expanding ethnic political power concentrated in key regions experiencing economic distress.

Read full article.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Local and Regional Restructuring of the American Continent”

2012/12/062012/12/06

Chuck Spinney: Pentagon Escaping Fiscal Cuts — To No Good End

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military

TIME BATTLE BLOG: MILITARY SPENDING

Business As Usual Inside Obama’s Pentagon

By Chuck Spinney, Time.com, Dec. 06, 2012

Winslow Wheeler’s three-part series on the Navy that wrapped up on Battleland Wednesday shows that the sea service is up to its old tricks.

To wit, it is impregnating President Obama’s five-year defense program by front-loading today’s budget in a way that creates irresistible pressure to grow its future budgets –even if it takes a marginal reduction in the near term.

Think of this as an emerging right to programmatic life issue, because, for reasons explained by Wheeler, abortion is out of the question, even though a programmatic miscarriage is inevitable.

Any one who doubts this, or thinks this future pathway is unlikely or accidental, need only recall the braggadocio of Ronald Reagan’s chief navy stud, Navy Secretary John Lehman, when he told a seminar in January 1983 at the Brookings Institution, that it was “too late” to stop the buildup to a 600-ship navy.

“We’ve already accomplished it,” he continued, “because we front-loaded (emphasis added) the budget.”

Predictably, Lehman’ 600-ship navy miscarried a few years later in the late 1980s in terms of fleet size, if not money.

Read full article.

2012/12/062012/12/06

Lynn Wheler: NASA Adopts IC Security Standards, Loses 100 Scientists Doing Unclassified Work

Government, Idiocy

Security Obsession Drives 100 Scientists from NASA

Top Security Clearance Needed to Help Steer the Curiosity Rover?

EXTRACT 1:

Thanks to the zealous wackos at the Department of Homeland Security, back in 2007 during the latter part of the Bush administration an order went out that all workers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena–an organization that is run under contract to NASA by the California Institute of Technology, had to be vetted for high security clearance in order to continue doing their jobs. Never mind that not one of them was or is engaged in secret activities (NASA is a rigorously non-military, scientific agency which not only publishes all its findings, but which invites the active participation of scientists from around the world). In order to continue working at JPL, even scientists who had been with NASA for decades were told they would need a high-level security badge just to enter the premises. To be issued that badge, they were told they would need to agree undergo an intensive FBI check that would look into their prior life history, right back to college.

Continue reading “Lynn Wheler: NASA Adopts IC Security Standards, Loses 100 Scientists Doing Unclassified Work”

2012/12/062012/12/06

Berto Jongman: Joshua Foust on Chaotic Intelligence Community

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

Chaotic Intelligence Community

American Security Project Flashpoint Blog

posted by Joshua Foust on December 5, 2012 at 11:56 am

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the Pentagon is sendinghundreds of spies overseas as part of its rapid expansion into espionage- an endeavor rivaling the CIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) will oversee this effort, expected to top the deployment of 1,600 agents worldwide. And it is the wrong approach.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Joshua Foust on Chaotic Intelligence Community”