SchwartzReport: Lies, More Lies, Still More Lies, Then Some More Lies…

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government

When your government lies to you over and over, as is the case in the U.S. today, the result is a loss of faith in the institutions of the state. I saw this happening in the old Soviet Union. People openly talked about how nothing the government said could be trusted. At the time it struck me as a very dangerous trend. Now it is happening here. This statement by the National Institute on Drug Abuse is an exa! mple. It is deceitful and dishonest in intent, and in fact, and the Obama Administration should be ashamed of itself. The lying that is coming out of the administration on in everything from national security to Marijuana is a disgrace. Click through to see some a very good compendium of actual facts.

Federal Drug Agency Denies Marijuana Is Less Toxic Than Alcohol
ROBIN WILKEY – The Huffington Post

This is a very serious issue that is getting almost no coverage in corporate media. Given its implications this is quite revealing of the state of American media. I have been digging into this for the past couple of weeks, and I am still unclear whether articles like this are alarmist, or an accurate representation of! what is going on. But one thing is clear, this is a major issue and appears to be a critical step in the rise of the Non-geographical corporate State's acquisition of power.   A world without democracy, ruled by a technocratic elite serving the interests of US and global capital – protecting “investor rights” against national laws and regulations – is now being created in secret negotiations over free-trade treaties, one of which, the TransPacific Parnership (TPP), may be sewn up this fall. Can popular will stop it?

NAFTA on Steroids: The TransPacific Partnership and Global Neoliberalism
CLIFF DURAND, Research Associate, Center for Global Justice and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State – Truthout

One of the more interesting trends going on right now as the decision by the Millenials to abandon Christianity. I think this is happening because the Theocratic Right lives in a realm of fantasy that Millenials can see is utterly bogus — 6,000 year old Earth, inerrant Bible, Creationism, and Clima! te Denierism.

Hemant Mehta on Rising Atheism Among Millenials: ‘It’s not That Christianity Is Unpopular, It’s That It’s Untrue
GEORGE CHIDI – The Raw Story

Here is some good news about the anti-GMO movement with which I am in complete agreement (See my esssay, The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness.)

Big Food Stocks and Anti-GMO Sentiment: The Right to Choose Movement Gains Strength
MINYANVILLE – NASDAQ

4th Media: Latin America Condemns US Espionage at United Nations Security Council

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War

4th media croppedLatin America Condemns US Espionage at United Nations Security Council

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 12:01 AM PDT

 “The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” Simon Bolivar Throughout the day, on August 6, President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner of Argentina chaired a historic United Nations Security Council meeting that revealed a seismic shift in geopolitical consciousness and incipient strength. The agenda of Security […]

Jon Rappoport: It’s the poets who destroy the old order

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Jon Rappoport
Jon Rappoport

It’s the poets who destroy the old order

“[Poetry] should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a Remembrance…” (John Keats)

“And then your life, the life you are telling me about, becomes a short story that had force only because it was viewed from a particular slant, your slant, which you found within the one language you speak…” (The Magician Awakes)

“The greatest sum is no sum at all. It isn’t the addition of facts or numbers. It’s the willingness, for a little while at first, to suspend judgment and consider there are mythic qualities in existence that come from us…myths greater than machines…and in order to give voice to the myths we need to go where poets go. We need to go there badly. For our own sake, we have to put that peculiar precision that splits a tiny particle into smaller and smaller pieces on the shelf for a little while…” (The Magician Awakes)

Call this an article of faith.

Full post below the line — strongly recommended.

Continue reading “Jon Rappoport: It’s the poets who destroy the old order”

David Swanson: Leah Bolger on Waging Peace

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government
David Swanson
David Swanson

Waging Peace

By Leah Bolger, WarIsACrime.org

Pauling Lecture, Oregon State University,  Power Point

Good evening.  I want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak with you this evening—it is such a pleasure to be here.

When I received the letter from Professor Clinton congratulating me on being nominated as the 30th person to receive the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Memorial Lectureship for World Peace, I was stunned!  After I went to the website and read the names of the 29 others who had given this lecture in years past, I became increasingly filled with a sense of honor, humility and gratitude that I had been chosen to follow in the footsteps of such notable intellectuals and activists as ***John Kenneth Galbraith, William Sloane Coffin, Noam Chomsky, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Grace Lee Boggs, not to mention the 8 Nobel Laureates:  ***Linus Pauling, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Mairead Maguire, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Jose Ramos-Horta, Betty Williams, Rigoberta Menchu, and Jody Williams.  And now my name was going to be added to this prestigious list.  I started feeling a strong sense of burden and responsibility to live up to the honor that had been given me.  What could I possibly tell an audience that would be worthy of this lectureship?  Even calling it a “lecture” gave me a sense of responsibility that I have not felt with any other speech or presentation that I have given.  Although I enjoy telling people that by serving 20 years on Active Duty in the Navy, I am now able to live off of my military pension and work as a full-time volunteer peace activist, I have only been an “activist” for the past 6 years or so—a relative novice compared to so many others who have dedicated their lives to peace and justice.  And so, I went very quickly from feeling elated that I had been chosen to give this lecture, to feeling a bit inadequate and unsure of what to say.

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that perhaps I had been chosen to give this lecture precisely because I was not a big name celebrity, or a Nobel Laureate.  Maybe I had been chosen because I am like so many of us—just someone who is outraged by injustice, and plugging along in the trenches, trying to exact change on the issues we believe in.  Maybe I could use this opportunity to speak with you, not to “lecture” you, but perhaps to encourage and motivate you to realize the power of our potential as activists.   The fact is that you don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to make a difference.  The work of most activists will never be recognized outside of their own communities, but we must remember that the power of activism is about all of us contributing a little.  These little contributions, when coupled with the actions of others, multiply in their power exponentially.

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Del Spurlock: Open Civics — Crafting Responses to Terror II

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Del Spurlock Jr.
Del Spurlock Jr.

Crafting Responses to Terror II

Current events are an essential tool for learning civics. So today we are going to stay on track with our objectives for a national service with three events of the last few days. The first event was President Obama’s speech to the Convention of the Disabled American Veterans.  You can watch it on the White House website, or, you can read the major points at this Stars and Stripes article.

There is nothing objectionable in the President’s remarks. His Administration’s commitment to our soldier/veterans is demonstrably more deeply felt and resourced than that of Mr. W. Bush and Mr. Clinton. In structuring greater transition services for our veterans, his Administration approaches President Reagan’s vision and commitment, abandoned during the first Bush Administration. Nevertheless, the President’s approach amounts to little more than a hardy salute and severance for our veterans. As we have discussed, our military will be shrinking in favor of freeing the Defense budget for buying new hardware, meaning more young people will be entering a shrinking labor market to compete with departing soldiers and laid-off veterans; the long term costs of treating and sustaining our wounded veterans and their families remain unaddressed; and the military structure and the cause for which they had fought are now known by our veterans to be corrupt.

These are continuing psychological and emotional burdens that must be shouldered by our veterans throughout their lives. These are matters unaddressed by the President, as is the potential of our veterans to be valued as the precious national assets we identified last week:

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Jean Lievens: Leadership in a Networked World — Doing the Right Thing Instead of Doing the Wrong things Right

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call
Jean Lievens
Jean Lievens

What type of leadership will be required to succeed in this new business world, created by the Networked Society? This society will see new market spaces, where cross-industry companies will compete. Because of its openness, its technology based on mobility, cloud and performing networks, because of globalization, free trade and capital movement; the Networked Society will transform and reshape businesses and industries.

Will the Networked Society require a new type of leadership?

Sami Dob

EXTRACT:

Thousands of books have been written about leadership and leaders, and many theories have been developed in the fields of management and psychology. To mention one, Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker stated that “management does things right; leadership does the right things.”

This post is an extrapolation of a previous post by my colleague Peter Linder, who discussed what type of talents will be required in the Networked Society. He mentioned the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) talents. In this post, I will discuss the type of leadership that will be needed in the Networked Society.

Read full post with many links.

Rickard Falkvinge: Copyright — Not Copying — Is Theft from the Commons

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Knowledge
Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard Falkvinge

Talking Back Lessons: Retorts To “Copying Is Stealing”

Posted: 17 Aug 2013 06:40 AM PDT

Activism: In a series of articles here at Falkvinge on Infopolicy, I’ll be giving examples of talking back to the most disturbingly false bullshit repeated by pro-copyright-monopoly pundits. The reason for this is that I see tons of this kind of bullshit in discussion threads, and it stands unchallenged, which is dangerous. As I describe in Swarmwise, it is of immense importance for our long-term liberties that false assertions are countered immediately and in numbers whenever they appear.

Today, we’re going to discuss the assertion that “copying is stealing”, that amazingly still lives on. It should be dead and buried at least fifteen years ago, but isn’t. Here are three examples how to counter it. Adapt to your own language and use when discussions threads like this one on Reddit pop up.

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