Journal: Plain Speaking About Washington Scams

Ethics, Government, Media, Military

Dark Visions? Cyberspace In Words And Warfare

by AuthorTim StevensThe facts of cyberterrorism, or state-sponsored cyberattacks, are heavily-guarded by national security protocols, but the case has yet to be made that these are really significant risks, despite what you hear senior officials say.  And this is the point: you cannot use the darkest imaginings of those with high-level security clearances to promote ends with little consideration of the ethical and practical implications of the means of achieving them. Crime and espionage are not necessarily acts of war, and the fact that they are being subsumed under the rubric of “war” should worry those who care about international relations, diplomacy, the role of security agencies, the relationship between state and industry, and about the constitutional contracts between the individual and the state.

. . . . . . . .

Critical analysts like James Der Derian have long noted the existence of a military-industrial-media-entertainment network (MIME-NET), a thesis it is more and more difficult to write off as paranoid post-structuralism.
. . . . . . . .

In a recent issue of Race & Class, journalist and writer Matt Carr tackles this phenomenon head-on, in a readable and non-academic article, Slouching Towards Dystopia: the New Military Futurism.  Carr claims that “a new genre of military futurology has emerged which owes as much to apocalyptic Hollywood movies as it does to the cold war tradition of ‘scenario planning'.”

. . . . . . .

Carr interprets this as a sign that institutions like the US military perceive themselves as “the last bastion of civilisation against encroaching chaos and disorder.  The worse the future is perceived to be, the more these dark visions of chaos and disorder serve to justify limitless military ‘interventions', techno-warfare, techno-surveillance and weapons procurement programmes, and the predictions of the military futurists are often very grim indeed.” I’ve sat in enough horizon-scanning workshops to have some sympathy for this view―little positive emerges from these discussions, and the outcome is almost always appeals for more regulation, bigger budgets, and better tools for the projection of power.

See Also:  America's CyberScam, Homeland Security Today, 9 February 2010

Journal: Hurray for Iceland, Shun the Corrupt

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Policies, Threats
Chuck Spinney

This is a dynamite op-ed written jointly by my good friend Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau.

Chuck

Coming to a Country Near You

Let a Dozen Latvias Bloom?

By MARSHALL AUERBACK and ROB PARENTEAU

The article's bottom line conclusion:

It is now time for the rest of us to follow the Lilliputians of Iceland:  to take the rentier juggernaut down before it completes the task. Time to pry the vampire squid off our faces so we can see the light of day again and allow some semblance of humanity to flourish again.  Hopefully, Iceland represents the future, not Latvia.

Full Story Online

Phi Beta Iota: Iceland has led the way.  It is time to start closing down the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the outrageous misbehavior of Goldman Sachs and the other banks.  Nations need to start nationalizing ill-gotten gains, refusing to pay predatory loan interest, and beginning to think for themselves.  We certainly encourage judicial activism in confiscating foreign-owned land and structures and in blocking both the privatization of water and other commonwealth resources, while also blocking predatory and often hazardous or poisonous importations.    Top-down government has been corrupted and does not work.  The only means to achieve resilience is bottom-up “home rule.”  We salute Iceland for its intelligence and its integiryt.

Journal: Hedge Funds Attack European Economies

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Non-Governmental
Webster Griffin Tarpley

Webster G. Tarpley

March 3, 2010

It has been evident for some time that the ongoing speculative attack on Greece, along with such other countries as Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, was not primarily a reflection of their economic fundamentals, nor yet a spontaneous movement of “the market,” but rather an orchestrated action of economic warfare.

Full Story Online , , ,    TV Clip (Russia TV)

Phi Beta Iota: There is no question but that Dr. Tarpley is correct at the moment, the hedge funds are waging economic war on Europe, are out of control, and need to be stomped down.  HOWEVER, what is not evident in his longer report is the fact that Europe welcomed help from Goldman Sachs and others in concealing its long-term debt, and it is for this reason that the hedge funds now have an “information advantage” that gives them a “sure bet” against the Euro generally and Greece specifically.  Until the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)–to name just a few–get a grip on  the totality of the information relevant to their safety, security, and efficiency, predatory capitalism, virtual colonialism, and unilateral militarism will continue to rule.  Our new book, INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability, provides a game plan for creating a prosperous world at peace by arming the UN, EU, AU, UNASUR, and SCO with the means to do multicultural, multifunctional information-sharing and sense-making.  Our favorite line from the book: a woman with a cell phone is vastly more powerful than a man with a gun.

True Cost: Cost of food-borne illnesses is deemed much higher than earlier estimates

01 Agriculture, 07 Health, 12 Water, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Full Story Online

Among the food scares in recent years was a deadly E. coli outbreak tied to spinach. In most cases, it's unknown how or why people get ill from what they eat. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / September 15, 2006)

Phi Beta Iota: The second sentence is ignorant.  It is well-known that between industrial farming with zero regard for either the spill-over of animal shit into fields growing fruits and vegatables, combined with an exotic array of antibiotics for the animals (living in ghetto conditions) and pesticides for the plants, most of which have NOT been tested and are NOT regulated because of multiple legal loopholes, most of what we eat is mostly comprised of oil and corn and neither safe nor nutritious.  Corporate irresponsibility survives because government complacency has been purchased.  This is a superb example of “true cost” economics that will hit the marketplace like a tsunami in the next five years.  When man-made illnesses are combined with over-kill on man-made antibiotics, we end up with untreatable bacterial and other diseases, all of this forecast in the strongest possible terms in the past 20 years.

See also:

INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

The below book selections are pulled from Chapter 20 on 21st Century Counterintelligence:  Evaluating the Health of the Nation.  The fragementation of knowledge, and the ignorance of the media, the government, and the academy are now profoundly pathological.

Continue reading “True Cost: Cost of food-borne illnesses is deemed much higher than earlier estimates”

Journal: Stronger Signals of Armed Anger in USA

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Peace Intelligence
Armed Resistance in USA

There is a new nation-wide movement striving to innoculate the National Guard as well as state and local police forces against illegal orders from the Pentagon and the White House.  The basic loyalty to the Republic Oath elements are below.  This comes in reaction to three distinct tangibles and one unverified but provocative intangible that are circulating with increasing urgency among those who fear the two-party tyranny and a blindly-obedient Pentagon:

1)  Haliburton prison camps on US soil

2)  FEMA discussions with various state and local law enforcement agencies about “federalizing” state and local police in case of a “national” emergency

3)  Document said to be circulating within Washington on the prospects of an armed rebellion within the USA (we think secession and nullification much more likely, with armed resistance only if the federal government stupidly tries to use force against state and local resistance.

4)  Unverified but from a Special Forces source with eyes on and unblemished integrity: multiple US military camps, one in Washington State and one in Alabama, among other locations, at which battalion size units of foreign troops (men without a country) have been kept in isolation, armed and trained, for contingency use within the USA.  The same source says there is a long running PSYOP profiling program to identify for contingency need those  US military personnel who would be willing to disarm US citizens if ordered to do so.

Never thought we'd get to this point.  Visit the site above for a closer look.  This is a movement Of, By, and For We the People, and it has very strong West Point, retired USMC, and National Guard support. In our view, the US military itself is beginning to realize the topsy-turvy nature of the morphing of the Global War on Terror (which is a tactic, not a target) into a War on Liberty right here in America. As we have long maintained, it is vital that our military personnel remember that Integrity is about loyalty to the Constitution, not to the chain of command.

OATH KEEPERS: ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people

3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control.”

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies. 10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Journal: False Consciousness, False Government?

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Policies
Chuck Spinney

My good friend Werther has been beavering away again in the US manure pile and this time has resurrected Engels' theory of False Consciousness to help explain the mismatch between ideology and reality that has become enshrined in contemporary American political psychology.

Full Story Online

False Consciousness

By Werther*

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.”

— Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

EXTRACTS:

Or so the conventional wisdom.

Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation has written an interesting refutation of that widely held notion. [1] He asserts that the last 30 years' of so-called free market doctrine have not aided, but rather retarded the cause of small business. Intriguingly, he cites, but does not expand upon, the following finding: “One recent study, based on data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, placed the United States second to last out of 22 rich nations in the percentage of workers who run their own businesses. Only Luxembourg ranked lower.”   . . .

Lynn argues that a key inflection point in government policy towards small business came in 1981, when the Reagan administration essentially stopped enforcing anti-monopoly and small business-protection statutes.

Phi Beta Iota: Reagan, whom we generally admired, also busted labor with his unconstitutional use of the military to break the air-traffic controller strike.  We ureg one an all to read the entire Op Ed and the three linked references.  American anti-intellectualism and American delusion are cresting at precisely the time we need ground-truth, truth at any cost.

Journal: US Counterterrorism Hosed, EOP/OMB AWOL

08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius

Hurdles Stymie Counterterrorism Center

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER, The New York Times (Syndicated)

Full Story Online

WASHINGTON — The nation's main counterterrorism center, created in response to the intelligence failures in the years before Sept. 11, is struggling because of flawed staffing and internal cultural clashes, according to a new study financed by Congress.

The result, the study concludes, is a lack of coordination and communication among the agencies that are supposed to take the lead in planning the fight against terrorism, including the C.I.A. and the State Department.

. . . . . . .

Continue reading “Journal: US Counterterrorism Hosed, EOP/OMB AWOL”