Officers Call – Page 169 – Public Intelligence Blog

Dear friends,

I don't usually present another organization's fundraiser in the middle of our Co-Intelligence Institute fundraiser, but this is an exception I feel strongly about.

Generating real wisdom together – not just knowledge and resources (as valuable as these are) – requires talking together. Furthermore, vast domains of our humanity flourish and deepen through conversation. And in both cases, the QUALITY of conversation makes all the difference in the world.

Collectively humanity now knows a lot about how to make powerful, enjoyable, meaningful conversations. A large and rapidly growing field of study and practice stewards these deeply human technologies and explores how to develop them further and use them better for broader benefit. These people bring to life a fundamental co-intelligence precept – accessing the wisdom of the whole on behalf of the whole.

Some of the most dedicated and creative people among those professionals are members of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. It is a home base, a learning community, an unparalleled resource – and it could be more. In my opinion, tNCDD nurtures one of the most important networks for the future of the planet. I consider its thrival essential. Furthermore, I have the highest respect for its co-founder and director, Sandy Heierbacher, a grounded, heartful, effective change agent. Her contribution to us all awes me.

NCDD's resource center alone is a priceless gift to each and every one of us. See, in particular, their Beginner's Guide and their “Best of the Best” page .

It goes without saying that I value any support you can give the Co-Intelligence Institute, But I want to urge you here to lend your support to NCDD, whether or not you donate to CII. As I tighten my own belt, I have given NCDD $100. Please read the note below that Sandy sent to me and other NCDD members and consider what you can do.

Thank you for taking a moment to consider this.

Coheartedly,
Tom

Below the Line: Message from NCDD Board

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation”

2011/07/192011/07/19

In the Dark of the Night: Public Administration in the 21st Century II

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call

Responding to Harrison Owen: Public Administration in the 21st Century II.

I think of consciousness from two perspectives. Both may seem plodding. I don’t think of it in terms of evolution, understood as involving some novel emergence, like growing a new organ. An improvement of consciousness occurs within the kind of physical and social makeup and potential that humans have had for a very long time and will be stuck with for a very long time.

One perspective is individual development. I’m reading Bernard Lonergan right now, so I will use his terms. He uses lists and says there are five degrees of “self-transcendence.” (Don’t go looking for any long explanation. I’m working off his Reader, and an excerpt from a 1980 article called “A Post-Hegelian Philosophy of Religion.”) “The fourth is the discovery of a truth.. the grasp in a manifold of data of the sufficiency of the evidence for our affirmation or negation. The fifth is the successive negotiation of the stages of morality and/or identity till we reach the point where we discover that it is up to ourselves to decide for ourselves what we are to make of ourselves, where we decisively meet the challenge of that discovery, where we set ourselves apart from the drifters. …becomes a successful way of life ..when we fall in love, whether the love be the domestic love.. or the love of our fellows whose well-being we promote and defend, or the love of God above all in whom we love our neighbor as ourselves.”

This seems to fit with what struck me in Robert Kegan’s book, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization. He has a nice little progression on “mental capability”, going from socialized mind, self-authoring mind, and self-transforming mind. The self-authoring mind is a very clever fellow who figures out how to get things done and apply concepts. They are the leaders today but a few percent get beyond it. Kegan even seems to have some tests that can detect this. And I saw his deceptively simple unlocking workshop really make a difference for several people.

The other perspective is culture. Lonergan points to a first enlightenment, with Newton, that swept away feudalism. We are well into a second enlightenment that relativizes it all. “Just as the first enlightenment had its carrier in the transition from feudal to bourgeois society, so the second may find a role and task in offering hope and providing leadership to the masses alienated by large establishments under bureaucratic management.” (From a 1975 paper in the Third Collection, p56-65.)

While all this sounds plodding, it can also get very sophisticated (in explaining our degraded culture and recapturing lost insight) without at the same time being taken in by some new age or guru, an impulse that has confused and derailed us. (My other guide on this is Eric Voegelin, who understood the errors of gnosticism.)

2011/07/192011/07/19

Harrison Owen: Public Administration in the 21st Century II

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies

Good show to In the Dark of the Night with the “Three Story lines” I find myself in substantial agreement with all that is said about the downsides. However I might put an additional twist on #1 – Changing Consciousness. It certainly can have the air of fantasy, especially when played in the mode of “The Age of Aquarius.” But the positive side might be that it has happened before on multiple occasions – so why not again? I think there is broad agreement that such shifts have happened, and not just in the esoteric community. Less agreement as to the exact phases and mechanisms of development (evolution) – and mild to wild arguments about the details. Developmental Psychologists, Anthropologists, Sociologists all have their schema – along with the esoteric community. It is even possible to do some useful comparative study, for example, Ken Wilbur’s The Spectrum of Consciousness (Quest Books, 1993)

The schema I offered (my take on the Great Chain) certainly falls at the low end of sophistication when compared to the other efforts, but it has been around a lot longer than all the rest which suggests a certain historical viability. And it was not my purpose to rewrite the history of consciousness, a task for which I have zero competence – but rather to get something on the table for discussion. Five Easy Pieces, as it were – you might say it was “good enough for government work.”

Anyhow, if shifts do take place, and the schema I offered is a rough approximation of the situation – why would that matter? One might argue that you simply had to fold your hands and wait for the inevitable to take place – and many people would do that – so why bother to even think about it? I think there are at least two reasons. First – when life gets confusing it is helpful if you can see the dreck as part of a process as opposed to mad randomness. I’m told that women experience this in the birthing process, each moment of which can seem like insane hell – and it is also an ordered sequence that gets you to a desired outcome (a baby). The second reason is that with some knowledge of the process, it may be possible to facilitate its progress, which of course is what a Midwife does, and Breathing helps.

You don’t design the process, can’t change it – No skipping of steps! But you can facilitate its flow. That is what happens in birthing. Could it also happen in the birthing of consciousness? Not just with each individual, one individual at a time, but all together, or at least in large groups? I think we have more than a few clues as to how that might happen – none of which include storming the walls of the ancient regime or convening the global design team. I think.

Ho.

2011/07/192011/07/19

In the Dark of Night: Public Administration in the 21st Century

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies

I see three story lines in this particular piece and often in much of your work in the past decade since you encountered Tom Atlee and those he introduced you to (one could say he did change your own consciousness):

Line 1. We are going to change consciousness

Line 2. The prior regime needs to be destroyed

Line 3. The times allow for, and cause us to, organize differently

I am sympathetic with all three, but each has its downside.

Continue reading “In the Dark of Night: Public Administration in the 21st Century”

2011/07/182011/07/19

Harrison Owen: Public Administration in the 21st Century

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Officers Call

Asked to comment on the preliminary abstract for a new article, below the line at Search: public administration in 21 century, Harrison responded as follows.

I like your story line, if only because you reach a conclusion that closely parallels one of my own. Coming off a very different base, I found myself convinced that we are at the cusp of a transformative moment, caught between a control oriented, rationalistic awareness (consciousness) of ourselves and our world, verging into an interactive, self organizing consciousness. And “cusps” are always painful and disorienting, which would seem to be an accurate, albeit mild, characterization of our times.

— extract from the end advanced here—

The real issue was that The Millennium Organization was not a “new program” – it was a profound paradigm shift. And if Thomas Kuhn has taught us anything it is that paradigm shifts are counterintuitive, painful and always the last thing that anybody in their right mind would care to do. Even worse shifting paradigms is not something you can think or reason yourself into. You can’t plan it, design it, program it, manage it, nor control it. The journey forward follows a very different route. I believe there are any number of useful approaches – but none of them come from the Old Proactive Toolbox. I think.

—read the full story—

Continue reading “Harrison Owen: Public Administration in the 21st Century”

2011/07/16

Chuck Spinney: Israel To Bomb Iran Soon + RECAP

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Former CIA Official: Israel Will Bomb Iran In September

July 15, 2011 4:04 pm ET — MJ Rosenberg

A longtime CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East is predicting that Israel will bomb Iran in fall, dragging the United States into another major war and endangering U.S. military and civilian personnel (and other interests) throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Earlier this week, Robert Baer appeared on the provocative KPFK Los Angeles show Background Briefing, hosted by Ian Masters. It was there that he predicted that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is likely to ignite a war with Iran in the very near future.

Read full story….

Phi Beta Iota: We know and admire Bob Baer, one of the greats in clandestine case officering, whose books, Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude and See No Evil–The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism correctly observe that no amount of professionalism in the intelligence ranks can make up for massive ideology, corruption, and impeachable malfeasance in the White House, Congress, and the military-industrial cabal. War is how the unethical elite deal with unrest at home–it syphons the poor angry young men out of the system and distracts the booboisee. Israel, like the USA, has multiple governments, and right now the two extremist versions are nominally in charge and think they can get away with bombing Iran and then redirecting the US military against Iran. The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is the best “truth-teller” on how crazy they can get, and how much they disrespect the USA. They give no thought at all to the five front war that George Bush started with the Islamic virtual caliphate, or the consequences of “burning” the young seeking reform, turning them all against Israel and the USA.

2011/07/152011/07/15

John Steiner: Hackers for Public Justice?

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking, IO Deeds of Peace, Officers Call

From: Dan Drasin

Some say the internet is the only field of effective protest-activism left — in the face of intractable establishment power, the growing militarization of local police and so forth. That may be a bit melodramatic, but the hacker group Anonymous has been giving it a shot with their actions that started in June of this year. What I didn't know until I saw this video (uploaded July 7th) is that Anonymous claims to be rolling out a one-year, three-phase plan, of which the first phase recently concluded. Here's their video manifesto — full of sound, fury and gung-ho chest-beating, but also entertaining and provocative.

YouTube “What Are We Capable Of?

[Anon Press, 13 Minutes, 1 of 27 Videos]

Phi Beta Iota: The video is a blast–very professional, deeply developed. We are ALL “anonymous” in the face of tyranny. Anonymous Attack is the alter ego of Public Intelligence. When no one goes to jail for crashing the US Economy, the US Government loses all legitimacy and credibility. Lies are neither patriotic or helpful. Epoch A is crashing. Epoch B is emergent. Our focus is on non-violent intelligence (decision-support) with integrity in the public interest. In the face of the vastly more destructive actions of the governments and corporations, and the benign corrupt neglect of non-governmental organizations, we can understand digital destructive attacks in the name of public justice. Learn more about our public intelligence plan below. May God Bless and Preserve the American Republic as it was originally conceived, not as it has been corrupted. “Ideas are bullet-proof.”

Reference: Intelligence for the Spirit of Assisi

ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President

2012 Manifesto for Truth: Intelligence with Integrity . . . in the Public Interest (Evolver Editions, July 2012)

2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated

2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability