Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1281 – Public Intelligence Blog

Nothing in a democracy is outside the reach of propaganda, from media to politics to education. Its influence on citizens’ choices can’t be overstated — and is even harder to overcome. In his new book, How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor, explains it’s always been that way. Stanley tracks propaganda’s history across continents and through decades, illuminating its power to make people vote against their own best interests.

Continue reading “Mongoose: When Propaganda Displaces Democracy”

2015/09/022015/09/01

Stephen E. Arnold: IBM Enables the Next Wave of US Job Layoffs is in Banking and Information Technology

03 Economy

Bank Exports IT to India

Despite falling out of interest with the mainstream media, jobs are still being outsourced to Asia. Citizens Bank is having their current IT employees train their replacements in a “knowledge transfer” and they will be terminated come December. . . . Citizens Bank signed a five-year services contract with IBM for IT services. IBM owns a large scale IT services company in India, which pays its workers a fraction of the current Citizens Bank IT workers.

2015/09/022015/09/01

Antechinus: GMO Are Twice Evil

01 Agriculture, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Liberation Technology

Growing Doubt: a Scientist’s Experience of GMOs

GMO crops still run far ahead of our understanding of their risks. Risk assessment of GMOs has been short-circuited and public concerns about them are growing. Until the damaged scientific ethos is rectified, both scientists and the public are correct to doubt that GMOs should ever have been let out of any lab. Science is not the only grounds on which GMOs should be judged. The commercial purpose of GMOs is not to feed the world or improve farming. Rather, they exist to gain intellectual property (i.e. patent rights) over seeds and plant breeding and to drive agriculture in directions that benefit agribusiness.

2015/09/012015/09/01

Baroness Shirley Williams: American Democracy for Sale — A Warning to Us All …

Access, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government

American democracy is up for sale, and it’s a warning to us all

By the end of June this year, $388m had been contributed to the campaigns of presidential candidates in 2016

It is imperative in a democracy that those opposed to the government of the day can cherish the prospect of peacefully changing its leaders and its policies. Otherwise the alternatives are some form of violent action, a revolution or a coup.

Continue reading “Baroness Shirley Williams: American Democracy for Sale — A Warning to Us All …”

2015/09/012015/09/01

CounterPunch: How US and WTO Screwed India Over Domestic Production of Solar Energy

05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

How the US and the WTO Crushed India’s Subsidies for Solar Energy

The subsidies which provoked the ire of the United States are in the form of Domestic Content Requirements (DCRs). These mandate that a set proportion of specified materials used in the NSM must be manufactured in India. . . . The US attack on India’s energy subsidies represents breathtaking hypocrisy. The US itself provides subsidizes for renewables.

Continue reading “CounterPunch: How US and WTO Screwed India Over Domestic Production of Solar Energy”

2015/09/012015/08/31