Category: Ethics

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Onset of Death for the Two-Party Tyranny….

07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government
DefDog Recommends....

Death of the Duopoly

Being binary is bad for business, so when will politics cure its bipolar disorder? Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch on the lessons Washington should learn from the real world.

By NICK GILLESPIE and MATT WELCH

Wall Street Journal,  Saturday, June 18, 2011

Nothing in American life today seems as archaic, ubiquitous and immovable as the Republican and Democratic parties.

The two 19th-century political groupings divide up the spoils of a combined $6.4 trillion that is extracted each year from taxpayers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels. Though rhetorically and theoretically at odds with one another, the two parties have managed to create a mostly unbroken set of policies and governance structures that benefit well-connected groups at the expense of the individual.

Democrats and Republicans are at risk of becoming irrelevant, says Reason.com's Nick Gillespie, as more voters identify as Independents or with other groups like the Tea Party. He talks with WSJDN's Kelsey Hubbard about the shortcomings of the longstanding duopoly in American politics.

Americans have watched, with a growing sense of alarm and alienation, as first a Republican administration and then its Democratic successor have flouted public opinion by bailing out banks, nationalizing the auto industry, expanding war in Central Asia, throwing yet more good money after bad to keep housing prices artificially high, and prosecuting a drug war that no one outside the federal government pretends is comprehensible, let alone winnable. It is easy to look upon this well-worn rut of political affairs and despair.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: A Wall Street Journal informal poll shows 83% of respondents now ready to vote for a third party, with some excluding the Tea Party as flaky.    Ralph Nader led this fight, others are finishing it.  We are honored to be in that number.

See Also:

Journal: Tea Party Manipulated, Idle Angry Minds Being Exploited…

Journal: ‘Systemic Corruption’–Daunting Challenge in Globalized Era

My Talk With Tom Atlee: Primer on Citizen Intelligence

Reference: Electoral Reform Act & Third Party Politics

Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)

Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny

2008 ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig

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Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
His Holiness Benedict XVI

UPDATED 26 October 2011 (Vatican focus on global financial reform / authority, need for ethics – avoids addressing secular corruption as we suggested in below letter sent January 2011)

Penguin: Vatican Calls for World Government…Oopps

Vatican, Ethics, & Truth I (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Vatican, Ethics, & Truth II (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Occupy Wall Street’s Most Unlikely Ally: The Pope

Vatican Breaks Bread (Sort Of) With Occupiers

Cardinal Turkson: Beyond Wall Street

2011: Commercial Intelligence and Competitive Strategy in International Markets – Context and Challenge Inteligencia Empresarial y Estrategia Competitiva en Mercados Internacional – Contexto y Desafio

UPDATED 18 June 2011 (Turkey Rising, Truth, Convergence of Science & Religion)

Turkey Rising–21st Century an Ottoman Century?

Catholic Church Getting Serious About “Truth”

Review: God and Science–Coming Full Circle

Review: The Beginning of All Things–Science and Religion

Review: Questions of Truth–Fifty-one Responses to Questions About God, Science, and Belief

M4IS2

UPDATED 10 February 2011 (All Other Assisi Links)

Seven Answers–Robert Steele in Rome

Assisi-Rome 2nd Meeting

Egypt & Jordan: Muslim & Christian Side by Side

Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!

Revolution Kickstarted by Facebook Generation

Assisi, Egypt, US Hypocrisy, Global Revolution

Reference: Correspondence on Assisi Intelligence

Reference: Intelligence for the Spirit of Assisi

ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President

Continue reading “Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…”

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Dr. Russell Ackoff (P): Reflections on IC and DoD + Design RECAP

Ethics, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design
Dr. Russell Ackoff

Doing the Right Thing for IC and DoD

Dr. Russell Ackoff (P)

The President wants $400B shaved off security over 12 years. The DNI thinks he is excluded from that number. Possibly, but that's only because the President hasn't yet come up with a similar number for intelligence. $80B for all intelligence is too much, and intelligence agencies need to cut back. Congress in its Appropriations bill implores the DNI to think differently as we head into this new era.  But there is no real program to do that. The community was breathlessly awaiting the DNI's strategy. It is a short list of nice sentiments, duly framed and posted on all the floors, without a hint of irony. Yet the DNI is not completely insensitive to the situation. When presenting his strategy, he observed that since 9/11 intelligence has only grown, and that there is no living experience with cutbacks nor any mechanisms for managing it. It simply isn't done. Mr. Leiter, the NCTC chief, was agitated at the meeting, sensing a train wreck. Along with Gates, he cautioned that a salami slicing approach would be the absolute worst way to do it. Like Gates, Leiter promptly resigned a week later, preferring to go out on top, before the deluge.

Continue reading “Dr. Russell Ackoff (P): Reflections on IC and DoD + Design RECAP”

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Turkey Rising–21st Century an Ottoman Century?

02 Diplomacy, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Strategy
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Turkey in Position to Lead Region Out of Tumultuous Century

By William Pfaff, Truthdig, Jun 14, 2011

Looking backward, there is a great deal to be said for leaving well enough alone, which is more difficult than one might think. Western Europe in the 19th century is now generally looked back upon as having constituted a pinnacle of Western civilization. Certainly in literature, music and the plastic arts this was so, the last-named in the century’s final decade, when painting ceased its period as domestic decoration and exploded into a myriad of ways to perceive not only the external world but the interior universe as well.

The modern Western intelligence was invented then, and the world has since played variations on 19th century political themes: nationalism, colonialism, imperialism, populism, class liberation, revolution, anarchism, class and racial warfare. The Napoleonic wars began the century and transformed its political institutions. The Franco-Prussian War ended the century, setting the scene for the hyper-destructive 20th century.

. . . . . . .

There is a Muslim community of peace for Turkey to inspire.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Science and religion and philosophy, when at their best, seek to establish “best truths.”  All three have been corrupted by politics, dogma, and laziness.  Peace costs one third of what is now spent on war, and infinite wealth for the many can only be achieved in the context of a universal peace.  If Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India come together on this point, Islam will be a global force in the 21st Century, not least because it will control secular corruption.

See Also:

Pfaff via Spinney at Phi Beta Iota

William Pfaff,  The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy (Walker & Co, 2010)

Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…

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DOT&E Documents and Tony Capaccio Story

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Standards, Technologies
Winslow Wheeler

There are a set of documents at the DOT&E website which offer DOT&E insights into the reason for why about 40 programs have experienced delays — and costs.  These documents relate to a Tony Capaccio story in today's Bloomberg News (below).

The document titled “Updated DOT&E Input on Program Delays” (at the DOT&E link shown above) identifies various specific reasons for the problems programs experience — different from most of the explanations from contractors and other system advocates in and out of the Pentagon.  (Eg. for the F-35:  Fly rates per month lowered to more realistic projections (from 12 max for all variants and venues to 10 max for CTOL/CV flight sciences, 9 max for STOVL flight sciences, 8 max for all mission systems); increased planning factors for re-fly and regression (up 15% for flight science, 10% for mission systems); more time required for software development and incremental builds.”)

Beyond the F-35, the various systems described in the analysis are typically more obscure programs (eg. AIM-9X 8.212 Software Upgrade) but there are also a few better known ones, such as LCS, which is described in “fly before buy,” Congress and the Navy want to rush ahead of testing to buy 4 LCS in the 2012 HASC DOD Authorization bill for $1.8 billion in production costs.

Availability of complete mission packages will be delayed until at least 2015.

Instead of withholding production of untested systems with clear and obvious development problems, Congress and the Pentagon are intent on business as usual.  The LCS is a good example: instead of “fly before buy,” Congress and the Navy want to rush ahead of testing to buy 4 LCS in the 2012 HASC DOD Authorization bill for $1.8 billion in production costs.

Some will think the DOT&E analysis and documents to be obscure and too “in the weeds” to pay much attention to.  Instead, they offer a major part of the explanation for why hardware costs and delays are so out of control, and they offer a stunning view into how little is being done about that.

BloombergNews.com, June 13, 2011

Weapons Testers Found Not to Blame for Procurement Delay

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Whistle-Blowers of 1777 & Congressional Intent

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Autonomous Internet, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Officers Call
Michael Ostrolenk Recommends...

The Whistle-Blowers of 1777

Stephen M. Kohn

New York Times, 12 June 2011

The tension between protecting true national security secrets and ensuring the public’s “right to know” about abuses of authority is not new. Indeed, the nation’s founders faced this very issue.

. . . . . . .

Later that month, without any recorded dissent, Congress enacted America’s first whistle-blower-protection law: “That it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.”

. . . . . . .

Nearly two centuries later, the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, praising the founders’ commitment to freedom of speech, wrote: “The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.”

Read full article…..

Phi Beta Iota: This is not about Barack Obama–he sold out, get over it.  This is about a two-party tyranny that hides its prostitution to Wall Street behind secrecy–chasing down whistle-blowers benefits both these parties all those they have shaken down for kick-backs.  This is about a system that is inherently corrupt, in which 63 of 65 parties–and all Independents–are shut out, disenfranchised, and cheated.

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Worth a Look (DVD): One Man, One Cow, One Planet

Advanced Cyber/IO, Atlases & State of the World, Change & Innovation, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Complexity & Resilience, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Crime (Corporate), Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Earth Intelligence, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Ethics, Gift Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (Public), Key Players, Methods & Process, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace Intelligence, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Public Administration, Reform, Reviews (DVD Only), Science & Politics of Science, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Technologies, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Threats, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Amazon Page

Home Page of DVD

Phi Beta Iota: The industrialization/ chemicalization of agriculture, in combination with the corruption of every aspect of society beginning with governance and extending to the media, has allowed for the desecration of the Earth and the poisoning of humanity.  This has been done with the explicit consent and encouragement of the so-called elites of the West, who have a vision of eugenics and the covert eradication of the poor and uneducated over time.  These elites do not see that the brainpower of the three billion poor is the only thing that can restore natural harmony and sustainable agriculture as well as legitimate governance and natural capitalism.  The time has come to create M4IS2–public intelligence in the public interest.