The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Just do it.
Together we can ensure that corrupt crony-capitalist banking institutions will ALWAYS remember the 5th of November! If the 99% removes our funds from major banking institutions to non-profit credit unions on or by this date, we will send a clear message to the 1% that conscious consumers won’t support companies with unethical business practices.
See Also:
Responding to a media request for comment on Stephen Aftergood's post, Intelligence Community Anticipates Budget Cuts:
“The US secret intelligence community is long overdue for a draconian reduction of its budget from the $80-90 billion a year today that it wastes on contractors producing vaporware, to something closer to the $20 billion a year that Jim Woolsey is on record as saying would be sufficient, and for once I agree with him.”
“General Tony Zinni is on record as saying that when he was in charge of the US Central Command, the secret intelligence community provided, ‘at best' 4% of what he needed to know. The fact is that the secret world is primarily a means of transferring wealth from taxpayers to corporations and banks–it not only lacks intelligence, it lacks integrity.”
“Two books sum up the sorry state of the secret world today–No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence, and Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.
Continue reading “Robert Steele: US Secret Intelligence Next Steps”
Here is the final paragraph from an essay by John Kay titled
The Map is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics
The preposterous claim that deviations from market efficiency were not only irrelevant to the recent crisis but could never be relevant is the product of an environment in which deduction has driven out induction and ideology has taken over from observation. The belief that models are not just useful tools but also are capable of yielding comprehensive and universal descriptions of the world has blinded its proponents to realities that have been staring them in the face. That blindness was an element in our present crisis, and conditions our still ineffectual responses. Economists – in government agencies as well as universities – were obsessively playing Grand Theft Auto while the world around them was falling apart.
to which I responded
What we are up against
A refreshing reminder of the staid mechanistic approach of so-called market-efficient economics. Good for the status quo as used to explain to the world WHY the Masters of the universe are in charge. I'm not sure how many of the deans of business schools and Harvard economics professors are prime advocates. But I imagine a substantial amount remembering the interviews that Ferguson did in the documentary Inside Job. They get very well rewarded for being apologists for the current system.
But I would like to take off from this point and try 500,000 foot summary of some of the issues. I am not sure how many people really understand the nature and the reasons for our problems I have a stack of books on my porch more than 3 feet high that I've read since 2008 attempting to grasp it. It is only with the addition of the latest by Nicholas Shaxson called Treasure Islands Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens that I feel I have made really significant progress.
Whether it is possible for the occupy movements to create among their followers and the wider public at large an understanding of the situation, I'm not sure. But I suspect that short of violent revolution which has never been a positive accomplishment–the only way forward is to formulate this broader understanding.
Evolution in the USA
A Geography Lesson for the Tea Party
Even as the movement’s grip tightens on the GOP, its influence is melting away across vast swaths of America, thanks to centuries-old regional traditions that few of us understand.
By Colin Woodard, Washington Monthly,November/December 2011
Read full article (five screens).
See: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
See Also: Nine Nations of North America
And a second contribution today:
United States needs to reevaluate its assistance to Israel
Walter Pincus
Washington Post, 17 October 2011
Occupy Wall Street Catalyzing a Cooperatively Owned Communications Infrastructure?
What would a cooperatively owned and operated communications infrastructure look like? One that used peer-to-peer technologies to create a global network which is immune to censorship and resistant to breakdown? It appears The Free Network Foundationis building one.
I noticed a few people bouncing this idea around on the Next Net google group earlier in the year, and now they seem to be moving forward quickly, with Occupy Wall Street a convenient catalyzing event to get things shipped.
Their vision is to create a global communications infrastructure that is owned and operated by participants in the network, rather than by for-profit network operators.
They currently have a prototype FreedomTower up and running at Occupy Austin, with a second one set up in Liberty Park at Occupy Wall Street in NYC. The towers are providing internet access to the occupiers, and will be used to establish an occupation-to-occupation Virtual Private Network.
For the more technically inclined, the foundation has published a bill of materials and how-to. The total cost of a tower comes in at $1500. The tower consists of an uninterruptible power supply, two wimax modems, a nettop computer, a network switch, three 2.4GHz sector antennas, and three 5GHz sector antennas. The computer runs software for routing and terminating VPN tunnelling.
If you’d like to contribute to this effort, visit freenetworkfoundation.org. There you can find a link to donate, and contact information if you wish to participate. The FNF has put the call out for occupiers everywhere to raise funds, read up, and get to work building resilient communications infrastructure for the movement.
Phi Beta Iota: Communications and money are the first areas where emergent democracy and capitalism will make their mark–free communications (resistance zero) and social commerce richly endowed with ethics.
See Also:
Autonomous Internet (115)
2007 Open Everything: We Won, Let’s Self-Govern
Review: The Innovator’s Manifesto – Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth
What, exactly, is wrong with the old frontier?
When Google + launched, millions of formerly optimistic people became optimistic again. Maybe this was going to be the one, the social network with just the smart people and none of the lame stuff, none of the spam or the pitches or the people we're trying to avoid.
And the same thing is true when the pack runs to the new nightclub, the new technology, the new suburban subdivision. Maybe this will be the one…
Of course, it rarely is. So much disappointment and so much bitterness. It's never as great as you hoped it would be. Ennui and then, eventually, waiting for yet another new frontier.
It's the old frontier that actually presents the most interesting opportunities, because the shine has worn off. This is your platform for real innovation, innovation in a place or a market or a situation that truly is ready for it.
Phi Beta Iota: Our collective interpretation of this is that the two old frontiers — a sustainable Earth and humanity prosperous and at peace — remain the greatest challenges and opportunities. Everything else is new, transient, and a tool rather than a fundamental.
This unconnected, dispersed approach to intelligence has never worked and this is a clear example of its failure. When one tries to do intelligence remotely, using technological means, one looses the “native atmospherics” that often tell more about what is going on than any sensor.
U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says
The Pentagon says Marines in Afghanistan and the crew controlling the drone in Nevada were unaware analysts watching the firefight via live video in Indiana had doubts about the targets' identity.
Phi Beta Iota: Leon Panetta has no idea what he is doing – just another naked ignorant mini-emperor going through the motions. All of us with intelligence and integrity have been pointing out that situational awareness comes from humans in the situation, not crews half the world away chugging a soda and morally disengaged; and bandwidth costs more than pilots.
