Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Journal: Chomsky on Mid-Term Elections

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform
Richard Wright

I have rather mixed opinions of Chomsky, but think he is on the mark in this OpEd.

The US Elections: Outrage, Misguided

truthout

17 November 2010

Noam Chomsky

The U.S. midterm elections register a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can recall in my lifetime. Since the Democrats are in power, they bear the brunt of the revulsion over our current socioeconomic and political situation.

More than half the “mainstream Americans” in a Rasmussen poll last month said they view the Tea Party movement favorably – a reflection of the spirit of disenchantment.

Noam Chomsky

The grievances are legitimate. For more than 30 years, real incomes for the majority of the population have stagnated or declined while work hours and insecurity have increased, along with debt. Wealth has accumulated, but in very few pockets, leading to unprecedented inequality.

These consequences mainly spring from the financialization of the economy since the 1970s and the corresponding hollowing-out of domestic production. Spurring the process is the deregulation mania favored by Wall Street and supported by economists mesmerized by efficient-market myths.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added above.  The chapter on “Legitimate Grievances” in ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (EIN, 2008) comes in two parts–domestic grievances warranting state nullification of federal abuse, and state consideration of secession if the legitimate Constitutionally-derived Republic cannot be restored; and global grievances occasioned by a century of unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory capitalism working in unison to loot the commonwealths of all nations–our elite corrupted the other elites, and between them they have come very close to destroying what should be a prosperous world at peace.

Structured Reading on Reality:

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

See Also by Chomsky:

Journal: Up to 90 percent of US paper money [in large cities] contains traces of cocaine

Review: What We Say Goes

Review: Interventions

Review: Failed States–The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (American Empire Project)

Review: Imperial Ambitions–Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project)

Review: Hegemony or Survival–America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project)

Review: The Umbrella of U.S. Power–The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Contradictions of U.S. Policy

Review: Profit Over People–Neoliberalism & Global Order

Review: 9-11

Review: Acts of Aggression

Review: Manufacturing Consent–The Political Economy of the Mass Media

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Journal: Israel, Gaza Blocade, and F-35 Lemon

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Consider please the moral implications of concatenating the following events:

The Obama administration just humiliated itself by promising

  • to turn over $3 billion in stealth fighters to Israel, supplementing the 20 F-35s it will buy with the $2.75 billion in “grants” it gets from Washington (i.e., and thereby using taxpayer money to save the troubled F-35 program even as  our Nato allies our pulling the plug on the disastrously troubled F-35);
  • to veto any U.N. resolution that questions Israel's legitimacy;
  • all in exchange for Israel's pledge to extend a ten-month partial settlement moratorium for just 90 days.

But according to the Jerusalem Post (13 Nov 2010), getting a 90 day suspension of settlement construction is going to be tough.  The Israeli human rights group Peace Now just released a report saying that settler construction is booming.  The report says that ‘1,126 foundations have been laid in 45 days, compared to 1,888 for all of 2009’ and that  Settlers have built foundations for 1,126 new homes in the seven weeks since the moratorium on such activity expired.  Moreover,  ground has been prepared for another 523 homes, but the foundations for these units have not yet been laid.

And meanwhile, over in Gaza, the Israeli human rights group Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement just won an FOI court case to force the Israeli government to release official documents that reveal the obvious — namely that it is the Israeli government's policy to inflict collective punishment on the Gaza people and that Israel's blatantly illegal blockade of Gaza is not related to Israel's national security (see below).  Nevertheless, the US still refuses to condemn the blockade or make its lifting a condition of continued  aid paid for by increasingly strapped US taxpayers.

Would it not be more better for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the US government exhibited the courage to ally itself with the courageous Israeli human rights groups, like Peace Now, Gisha, and B'TSelem who are peacefully challenging the patently illegal policies of their own government?

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

“PUT THE PALESTINIANS ON A DIET”

MEDIA BURY DOCUMENTS REVEALING ISRAEL’S DELIBERATE POLICY OF NEAR-STARVATION FOR GAZA

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

Israel has been forced to reveal what Palestinians and other observers on the ground have known for a long time: that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”.

Continue reading “Journal: Israel, Gaza Blocade, and F-35 Lemon”

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Journal: Twitter Money To Open Money

11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Mobile, Real Time
Jon Lebkowsky Home

HelpAttack!

by jonl on November 16, 2010

My friend Sarah Vela launched a new company called Help Attack! in August, and it’s proving to be a cool way for nonprofits to raise money, and a clever way for donors to commit money by pledging to give some amount of money for every tweet they post in a month. Sez Sarah, Sez Sarah, “This new way to donate is easy, fun and offers a layer of social responsibility to online activities. We invite all nonprofit organizations seeking new ways to collect funding through year-end campaigns to visit the site, add themselves if they’re not already listed, and share this new way of giving with their supporters.” In addition to the money they’re raising, the nonprofits get more social media visibility via the Twitter connection. Callie Langford, Communications Manager of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), says HelpAttack! raised awareness of her organization and provided “a no-fuss way for us to receive additional donations, engage with new and old donors, and share details about our upcoming events.” [Link to HelpAttack!]

Help Attack Home

Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting in part because it shows the further development of bottom-up fund-raising at a micro-level; and in part because once the platform is well-established, the way is open to adopt Open Money and cut the banks out entirely.  Facebook is also on its way to becoming a financial exchange without the built-in legalized organized crime.

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Reference: Our Choice–Changing the Game

About the Idea, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

Today, with permission, I present Tom Atlee's newest vision, “Are We Ready to Change the Game Yet?,” and at the end, a link to his 2000 audio interview with Jim Rough, pioneer of Citizen Wisdom Councils and author of Society's Breakthrough.

ARE WE READY TO CHANGE THE GAME YET?

by Tom Atlee

2010-11-15-atlee.jpg

Some people say Gandhi was about nonviolence. And he was.

But he is significant for something else that I believe is far more important:

He changed the game.

With no one's permission, he reconfigured the playing field of colonialism to a higher Game in which everything the British did in their smaller, narrower game backfired on them. Prisons, guns, threats and bureaucracies of control not only ceased to work like they used to, but actually generated more power for Gandhi's world-changing Game.

Gandhi's Game involved, in his words, “experiments in Truth” — a search for Truth, a bigger Truth, a common inclusive Truth, a win-win Truth in every situation. The British — and even many of Gandhi's compatriots — were not aligned to that Truth. They wanted victory, control, and righteousness. These things trapped them in their smaller game until, one by one, and sometimes wholesale, Gandhi's commitment to Truth won their hearts and minds — and Shift happened.

Unfortunately he failed to create adequate social institutions that embodied, sustained, and empowered the Search for Truth by the whole of society. He depended on individuals seeing the light and being transformed. The miracle of his work is that so many people did transform — and continue to transform even to this day — inspired by his words, his life, his work. But in the end, what he left was an inspiring possibility, not an India or a world that was united, peaceful, just and sustainable.

Today's world calls us, with increasing intensity, not just to carry on Gandhi's work, but to carry it further. It isn't a matter of doing nonviolence as he and Martin Luther King, Jr., did it. It is a matter of changing the game.

Which brings me to the current state of U.S. politics and governance. These games are desperately in need of changing. Several recent innovations offer us the possibility to actually accomplish that and the timing is ripe.

Continue reading “Reference: Our Choice–Changing the Game”

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Journal: US Keeps Spending in AF

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Tom EngelhardtTom Engelhardt
Editor of TomDispatch.com

Posted: November 15, 2010 03:23 PM

The Stimulus Package in Kabul (I Was Delusional — I Thought One Monster ‘Embassy' Was the End of It)

You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn’t going to end, is it?  Not ever.  Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your “it” might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.

Read rest of long, deep, important articulation….

Phi Beta Iota: Please take the time to link to the entire article at Huffington Post.  Tom Englehardt has produced one of the most gripping, detailed, insightful, and provactive snapshots of how three monstrous billion dollar “embassies” in Baghdad, Kabul, and now Islamabad, are the last clarion of the Empire.  His piece is a “must read,” both an epitaph on the Empire, and sadly, a preface to the next 20 years of death and debt as we wind down all that has been set in motion.

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Reference: Earth System Science for Global Sustainability–Grand Challenges

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, microfinancing, Mobile, Open Government, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Real Time, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Main Document (24 Page PDF)

The International Council for Science (ICSU) is spearheading a consultative Visioning Process, in cooperation with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), to explore options and propose implementation steps for a holistic strategy on Earth system research. Five Grand Challenges were identified during step 1 of the process. If addressed in the next decade, these Grand Challenges will deliver knowledge to enable sustainable development, poverty eradication, and environmental protection in the face of global change.

The details of the Grand Challenges are contained in the document ‘Earth System Science for Global Sustainability: The Grand Challenges’, representing input from many individuals and institutions.

Science Article (2 Page PDF)

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SCIENCE – PRESS RELEASE

Thursday 11 November 2010

Scientific Grand Challenges identified to address global sustainability

Paris, France—The international scientific community has identified five Grand Challenges that, if addressed in the next decade, will deliver knowledge to enable sustainable development, poverty eradication, and environmental protection in the face of global change. The Grand Challenges for Earth system science, published today, are the result of broad consultation as part of a visioning process spearheaded by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in cooperation with the International Social Science Council (ISSC).

The consultation highlighted the need for research that integrates our understanding of the functioning of the Earth system—and its critical thresholds—with global environmental change and socio-economic development.

The five Grand Challenges are:

  1. Forecasting—Improve the usefulness of forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people.
  2. Observing—Develop, enhance and integrate the observation systems needed to manage global and regional environmental change.
  3. Confining—Determine how to anticipate, recognize, avoid and manage disruptive global environmental change.
  4. Responding—Determine what institutional, economic and behavioural changes can enable effective steps toward global sustainability.
  5. Innovating—Encourage innovation (coupled with sound mechanisms for evaluation) in developing technological, policy and social responses to achieve global sustainability.

Continue reading “Reference: Earth System Science for Global Sustainability–Grand Challenges”

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Journal: Arrogance, Rankism, & Incapacity

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Seth Godin Home

Arrogance is a bug in signal processing

We care a lot about finding people who are brilliant, who get things done, who make a difference. We care a lot about finding a playwright with talent, a surgeon who can cure us, a programmer who can get the thing to work.

Along the way, many of the linchpins who are able to do work like this develop affectations, quirks and even obnoxious qualities. They might demand an over-equipped dressing room or a private jet or merely be a jerk in meetings (or show up late, which is almost as bad).

We often put up with this, because, after all, they're superstars, right?

Somewhere along the way, we confused the signals with the work. Now there are people who start with the bad behavior and the affectations, hoping that it will be seen as a sign of insight and talent. And they often get away with it. “Who's that?” we wonder… “I don't know, but they must be good at what they do, because why else would we put up with them?” It's a great plan when it works, but I don't think it's a strategy to be counted on.

The key to getting a reputation for being brilliant is actually being brilliant, not just acting like you are.

Phi Beta Iota: The literature on organizational pathologies also refers to this as “rankism,” an affliction suffered by most who rise to the top ranks and allow themselves to be cut off from reality.  Daniel Elsberg's quote from Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, is still the best:

The danger is, you’ll become like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours” [because of your blind faith in the value of your narrow and often incorrect secret information].

noble gold