Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2641 – Public Intelligence Blog

clinton tech — What's Wrong with This Picture?

UPDATED: Robert Smith comment at Facebook:

“WHAT? Dictators $10 billion, Democracy lovers $25 million, hypocrisy priceless.”

Phi Beta Iota: It is actually much worse than that. Our estimate of the cost of US being best pals with 42 of 44 dictators is closer to 500 billion, and that is a very conservative estimate. The cost is roughly divided between US taxpayer money being given away for the wrong reasons, and the “true cost” to the world–and ultimately to the USA–of an unethical, uninformed, unstrategic foreign policy that is in no way, shape, or form focused on creating a prosperous world at peace. Not to be naive, we realize that we have a government Of, By, and For the Banks and their Corporations. That is what needs to change, non-violently, on the basis of Internet Freedom and Freedom through the Internet. In passing, we are not amused when people steal our ideas and offer to help the US Government do for $3 million what we are doing for free. Three Internet Freedom URLs with links below the line.

Clinton Pledges $25 Million for Net Freedom Fighters

Spencer Ackerman

WIRED February 15, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed on Tuesday to invest $25 million for developers to build tools that will let online dissidents get around “thugs, hackers and censors.” It’s her attempt at giving teeth to the so-called “Internet Freedom Agenda” that she unveiled last year.

Read rest of the report….

Continue reading “Hillary Clinton: Torn Between Dictators & Rhetoric”

2011/02/182011/02/18

Turkey to USA: This is where you get off….+ RECAP

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

Very heavy interview with Turkey's Foreign minister : Beginning at 9:40, the issue of Israeli intransigence on negotiations. No “mainstream” pick-up anywhere I can find.

Turkey's line in the sand. Cannot be walked back. I believe this to be a notice to US in the face of the wikileaks palestinian docs which revealed the US duplicity, in which EVERY nation under the influence of the US vis-a-vis negotiations was made to look like stooges. None, more so than Turkey. I believe that this interview ends that subordination.

Ahmet Davutoglu on Al Jazeera

As the Middle East undergoes historic transformation and upheaval one country is quietly enjoying levels of prosperity and stability that can only be envied by its neighbours – Turkey. And, in its ninth year of rule by the AK Party, the country is perceived as having successfully combined democracy and Islam.

But under the AKP Turkey has done more than improve its system of governance. It has also reached out to the Middle East in a way that no previous Turkish government has.

But as Western governments can tell you, getting involved in the Middle East is not always easy. One man more than any other is responsible for Turkey's drive to engage: Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister.

He talks to Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught about the recent developments in the Middle East and explains why he is hopeful that change and stability will work together in Egypt and serve as a positive example for other countries in the region.

This episode of Talk to Jazeera aired from Monday, February 14, 2011.

Phi Beta Iota: Turkey and Iran are both inevitable leaders in their region and across their considerable diasphoras. There is NOTHING the US can do about it because the US is financially, morally, and practically bankrupt. It is going to take a quarter century to recover from the craven criminality that has chracterized the two-party tyranny and their Wall Street and corporate masters. The world is not stupid–they understand the inherent goodness of the American people and of America the Beautiful, but they also wonder why a public once famed for its independent intelligence can now be confused with a herd of sheep.

2011/02/182011/02/18

US Slow Burn in Pakistan….and DOA Elsewhere…

Civil Society, Government

berto small — Berto Jongman Recommends...

The Deepening Mystery of Raymond Davis and Two Slain Pakistani Motorcyclists

Counterpunch establishes that he is not a diplomat–probably a contractor, or CIA standards for non-official cover officers no longer exist. US Government party line is deceptive.

PPP to sack Wahab for echoing US stand on Davis’ diplomatic immunity status

One Rule for Foreign Consulates in the US, Another for US Consulates Abroad

Afghan Residents Dispute the US Case for Its Destruction: From a Bombed Village

US was Cheerleader for Massacre: Wikileaks Cables on Israel's Gaza Onslaught

2011/02/182011/02/18

$100 What from How Many Trillions?

07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding

Big Number Problem

Short Video Explains Hypocrisy of Proposed Cuts

Summary: From the stack pictured here, imagine one penny being taken off. That is the nature of the proposed cuts. Watch short video.

Rule One: Mandatory entitlements and spending are PORK. Anyone with an ounce of integrity would start there, eliminating subsidies, corporate entitlements, tax fraud tolerance, and so on.

Rule Two: Discretionary spending is so heavily weighted toward defense and intelligence that it is EASY to find $250 billion for redirection. Nothing would make the Phi Beta Iota collective happier than to see all those “butts in seats” swinging a pick-axe in a road gang.

Rule Three: If the government does not start taxing the wealthy and getting OUR financial house in order, deep changes in government are likely to be demanded by the public in 2011-2012. A complete tax boycott is one reasonable option.

Tip of the Hat to Rutledge McGhee, SAS '70, at Facebook.

2011/02/182011/02/18

US Set to Veto UN Vote on Israel Settlements

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

US lack of strategic morality is a known–what is interesting are the reactions to this story, here are just a few of them:

an American veto is circumventing the problem

I am utterly Embarassed to have an American Citizenship

US is lost and drowned

HA! The ONLY obstacle to peace is the vetos the us keeps using.

Settlements are ILLEGAL, Israel IMMORAL, U.S HYPOCRITICAL

The US Has Just Lost the Entire Arab World

Obama's moment of truth

palestinians — Palestinians waving flags during a protest in Ramallah yesterday. Some 1,000 protesters called for an end to Palestinian divisions and the split between Hamas and Fatah. Photo by: Reuters

UN set to vote on settlement resolution; U.S. set to veto

U.S. is the only Security Council member that opposes the resolution; though its wording does not conflict with Washington’s stance on settlements it fears that if the resolution passes it will be an obstacle to renewal of peace talks.

By Barak Ravid, Natasha Mozgovaya and Shlomo Shamir

HA'ARETZ, February 18, 2011

EXTRACT: The Arab states and the Palestinians rejected the U.S. compromise proposals. The Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, announced that the resolution will be brought to a vote of the Security Council tonight. The Palestinians told U.S. officials they will not repeat the mistake they made in connection to the Goldstone Report last year, when they gave in to American pressure and at the last moment deciding not to submit the document for a vote to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

2011/02/182011/02/21

Internet Freedom–The Public Dialog Continues

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Autonomous Internet, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Methods & Process, Mobile, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Reform, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools

220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

SOURCE: P2P Foundation Category:P2P Infrastructure

This is a specialization of our general Technology section, focusing more explicitely on the ‘true internet' or distributed P2P infrastructures. It is being updated over the next week or so.

On the overall perspective of the P2P Foundation: What Digital Commoners Need To Do, a meditation on the strategic phases in the construction of a peer to peer world

Help us improve our definition of what a true P2P Infrastructure should be: Defining True P2P Infrastructures

Programmatic Statement for the creation of a world-wide user-controlled network based on a distributed architecture, by Raffael Kéménczy

Projects we find worthty of support:

We Rebuild is a cluster of net activists who have joined forces to collaborate on issues concerning access to a free internet without intrusive surveillance
Open Source Mesh Networking projects monitored by Open Source Mesh
Various strategies to achieve Free Fiber to the home
High Priority Free Software Projects: “The FSF high-priority projects list serves to foster the development of projects that are important for increasing the adoption and use of free software and free software operating systems.”

Projects to decentralize/distribute the internet:

Continue reading “Internet Freedom–The Public Dialog Continues”

2011/02/18

Weblogsky Salutes David Brooks on “Social Animal”

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

David Brooks: “Social Animal”

by jonl on February 17, 2011

David Brooks’ article “Social Animal,” in the New Yorker, piled on more insights about human essence and consciousness: “Our perceptions…are fantasies we construct that correlate with reality.”

“I believe we inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago we call family, and the information offered months ago we call education. But it is all information that flows through us. The brain is adapted to the river of knowledge and exists only as a creature in that river. Our thoughts are profoundly molded by this long historic flow, and none of us exists, self-made, in isolation from it.

Continue reading “Weblogsky Salutes David Brooks on “Social Animal””