Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Penguin: Gabriel Kolko on CIA’s Contradictions / Cassandras

10 Security, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Officers Call
Who, Me?

GABRIEL KOLKO is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?. He has also written the best history of the Vietnam War, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the US and the Modern Historical Experience.

Paid to be Ignored

The CIA’s Cassandras

GABRIEL KOLKO

Counterpunch, 20-21 January 2012

At no time has the U.S. based its foreign policies on facts — as opposed to its conceptions reliant on sheer wishes, interests, or pretensions, (its ambitions are often a mixture of all of these). Nor has it had fears that are warranted by reality. It has needs, whether economic or geopolitical. It has, however, often had the correct intelligence and the facts before it to warrant entirely different policies on its part.  At the same time as it gets into tenuous military situations, situations it is often destined to lose and pay a great deal for while in the process of doing so, it employs people to produce rational analyses—which it then ignores.  Why?

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  This is one of the longest, most cogent pieces we have seen on the internal and external contradictions inherent in the CIA archipelago of contrasting functions, values, and marginal outputs.  It is totally consistent with the many books reviewed here on intelligence.

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Worth a Look: The People’s Money – How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt

Book Lists, Policies, Worth A Look
Amazon Page

PART ONE: The Political Class
1.  What the Political Class Thinks Voters Think
2.  How the Political Class Deceives

PART TWO: How Voters Would Spend the People's Money
3.  How Voters Would Fix Defense
4.  How Voters Would Fix Social Security
5.  How Voters would Fix Medicate and Health Care
6.  How Voters Would Fix the Tax System
7.  How Voters Want to Be Generous

PART THREE:  How Voters Would Save the People's Money
8.  Ending Corporate Welfare
9.  Giving the People a Return on Investments
10.  Tightening the Belt of the Beltway
11.  Adding it All Up

CONCLUSION: The End of the Political Class

Phi Beta Iota:  This book will be released on 31 January 2012.  It has been ordered and a full review will be provided right away.  This may be one of the most exciting books to be released in 2012, and one of the most relevant, for it is certain to break the back of the political class with transparency and truth.  The fact is that the two-party tyranny is corrupt and Congress in criminally neglectful of the public trust.

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Jon Lebkowsky: Clay Shirky on SOPA as Keeping Us Passive Not Producing and Not Sharing

07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Movies
Jon Lebkowsky

Clay Shirky has the best overview I’ve seen/heard/read of PIPA and SOPA and the context from whence they emerged; the bottom line: the legilsation’s about wanting us to be passive consumers, not producing and not sharing.

Phi Beta Iota:  To this we would add it is also about a criminally negligent and corrupt Congress exercising its power against the public interest (treason), and a criminally negligent and corrupt combination of Hollywood and Internet Service Providers seeking to legitimize vigilante arbitrary untempered attacks on anyone anywhere without due process.

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Marcus Aurelius: Britain Admits Moscow Spy Rock

Advanced Cyber/IO, Government
Marcus Aurelius

Britain Admits Moscow Spy Rock

MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti)

Britain has for the first time admitted it was spying when Russia’s state security service, the FSB, accused British diplomats of using a transceiver hidden inside a rock on a Moscow street.

Footage showing the alleged spies using the device was aired on Russian TV in January 2006. The FSB described it as “absolutely new spy technology.”

The UK Foreign Office then denied the claims.

But in a BBC documentary due to be broadcast later today, Jonathan Powell, then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff, admitted the footage was genuine.

“The spy rock was embarrassing,” Powell said, adding that the Russians “had us bang to rights.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Spy rocks are not new–indeed one must give credit to the US for being the best at developing this technology in times past.  What is most interesting about the report is the suggestion that the British are using non-governmental organizations for “deep cover.”

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Jon Lebkowsky: The Meaning of the Internet Blackout

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Jon Lebkowsky

JOHO: Messages from the Dark

At “JOHO the Blog,” David Weinberger has a simple and very cool summary of the meaning of yesterday’s SOPA-induced blackout. “This is our Internet. We built it. We built it for us, not for you. We get to turn off the lights, not you.” Yes, indeed. It took a long time for the the Internet to smell like money to those folks who like that smell more than they like the smell of creativity, innovation, fellowship, commons, etc. Now it’s a platform for all media in digital formats that are easily replicated, therefore distribution is hard to control. Much of what flows across the Internet is freely shared by its creators, and there’s also channels for media that people pay for (like Netflix). A system that facilitates all that sharing, along with a high degree of interactivity, also makes it easy to do the natural sort of sharing that peopel will inherently do. Content providers could spend less time figuring out how to stop sharing, and more time figuring out how to build a business model that works in a social/sharing environment.  People who invest time and money in media creation and production have a right to charge for it, but we need to rethink how that works in the 21st century networked world.

Four messages from the dark

Posted on:: January 19th, 2012

The black that covered so many sites yesterday spoke well. I think there were four messages.

First, This is our Internet. We built it. We built it for us, not for you. We get to turn off the lights, not you.

Second, we are better custodians of culture than are culture’s merchants because we understand that culture is what we have in common. We feel pain every time something is held back from this Commons.

Third, just as we can make someone famous rather than having to passively accept the celebrities you foist upon us, we can make an idea politically potent. Going dark was the self-assertion with which political engagement begins.

Fourth, there’s a growing “we” on the Internet. It is not as inclusive as we think, it’s far more diverse than we imagine, and it’s far less egalitarian than we should demand. But so was the “we” in “We the People.” The individual acts of darkness are the start of the We we need to nurture.

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Stephen Lendman: Israel Violates Palestine, Plans New War

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Military, Officers Call
Stephen Lendman

Israel Plans Major Gaza War

Stephen Lendman

VeteransToday, 18 January 2012

Israel already threatens war on Iran. It’s also involved with Washington, Turkey, Jordan, and other rogue Arab states behind Syria’s externally generated insurgency.

Gaza’s also threatened. On January 1, Haaretz writer Amos Harel headlined “Will 2012 bring another Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza?” saying:

Repeated Israeli air strikes and incursions target Gaza. Perhaps they precede a broader offensive. Israel’s IDF chief Benny Gantz “said on Army radio that ‘Operation Cast Lead was carried out in a professional, determined manner, and significantly strengthened Israel’s deterrent strength.’ ”

At the same time, he suggested another round of fighting is likely. “Particularly worrisome (are the alleged) weapons smuggl(ed) into the Gaza Strip. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have….many thousands of rockets; hundreds” able to reach central Israel, said Harel.

As a result, “the IDF is preparing itself for the possibility of a land operation in another few months.”

On January 16, Jerusalem Post writer Yaakov Katz headlined, “IDF preparing for major Gaza action within months,” saying:

Read full article.

noble gold