Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 3034 – Public Intelligence Blog

This lengthy piece is organized as follows:

1) Chuck Spinney on how our partisan “leaders” are disconnected from reality and leading us over a cliff, with reference to John Boyd.

2. An extract and link to the always brilliant CounterPunch where David Michael Green discusses the core issue: Can America be salvaged?

3. A Phi Beta Iota editorial commentary on Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), Robert Steele (Paradigms of Failure, Data Pathologies), and Howard Zinn (A Power Governments Cannot Repress).

CHUCK SPINNEY: The article in Counterpunch by David Michael Green, “Can America be Salvaged?” is an brilliant expository argument describing what are in effect the destructive outcomes of self-referencing/incestuously amplifying OODA loops that are becoming ever more disconnected from reality.

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2009/09/182009/09/20

Journal: Missile Defense as a Metaphor

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Key Players, Policies, Threats

The Obama Administration means well, no question about it. They simply do not know what they do not know, and no one within the US Intelligence Community appears capable of speaking truth to power.

The truth that needs to be spoken is that Washington lacks both integrity and intelligence (as in thoughtful holistic decision-making). Washington lacks a strategic analytic model, it lacks a commitment to eradicating the ten high-level threats to humanity (terrorism is ninth, a traffic accident, nothing more), and it lacks a process for harmonizing budgets and behavior across twelve core policy domains as illustrated below.

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2009/09/182009/09/18

Journal: How Many CIA’s and How Threatening is the CIA to the Lives of Leon Panetta and Barack Obama?

Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Government, Leadership-Integrity, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Strategy-Holistic Coherence, Threats, Threats

We were surprised this morning to learn that Ray McGovern, a CIA veteran whose credibility we respect, is saying that Leon Panetta and Barack Obama may be treating CIA with kid gloves for fear of being assassinated by the “insider” CIA that itself fears criminal prosecution for the death of over 100 detainees in CIA custody. Food for thought. Read McGovern's thoughts at The Media Consortium, “Ray McGovern Warns of ‘Two CIA's.'”

There are two sides to this matter. How many CIA's? Does CIA assassinate U.S. citizens including leaders?

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2009/09/182009/09/18

Journal: Health Policy Fundamentals

07 Health, Policy, Reform

Below is a simple illsutration of what a proper national health policy should address.

Health Policy Fundamentals — Printable Powerpoint Slide (1997-2003) with Notes

This illustration is freely available under Creative Commons non-commercial license except that media outlets are gladly given a waiver and may make free use with attribution to “Phi Beta Iota, Public Intelligence Blog.”

Below is a simplified question and four-point answer that any serious person should be able to comprehend.

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2009/09/172011/10/22

Journal: Race, Class, Money & Truth

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

In keeping with our new-found commitment to focus on public intelligence and leave political reform to others, this commentary provides an overview of the political scene (including political commentary from journalists lacking any independence), and concludes that what is missing from our national dialog are integrity and public intelligence.

First, the political “terrain” of ideological conviction, borrowing from Michael Crane with permission.

As best we can tell, there is not a single think tank free of ideological conviction andall are also lacking in full access to all relevant sources of information, to serious processing power, and to multi-cultural analytics.

The two-party tyranny is “running on empty” and has effectively destroyed the center, where ideas should meet, and also greatly extended the chasm between those in power (the power of the purse and the day to day operations of government) and those with knowledge (generally in the private sector, generally not being listened to by the so-called “intelligence community” that thrives on expensive secrets at the public's expense (double-entendre).

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2009/09/162009/09/16

Monograph: The U.S. Intelligence Community and Foreign Policy Getting Analysis Right

Analysis, Monographs

This monograph by Dr. Kenneth Lieberthal, a PDF of 81 pages, is just out (September 2009) from the China Center of the Brookings Institute. In its area of specific focus, getting analysis right, it is a solid B+, short of an A because it continues the unilateralist mind-set that eschews both full engagement with the other seven tribes of intelligence, and with multinational governments, corporations, and non-profit organizations that do not wish to share secrets but are willing to share substantive knowledge.

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2009/09/162009/09/18

Event Report: IndependentVoting.Org Telephone Conference Call with Jackie Salit

Civil Society, Ethics, Reform

13 September 2009

1900-1940

National Telephone Conference Call

Highlight: Jackie Salit and her organization, which assured the elections of both Mayor Mike Bloomberg in New York City and Barack Obama by the thinnest margin that would not have been achieved without 19 million Independents, is seeking help from the public and all organizations interested in democracy, help in challenging Barack Obama to fill the two vacant seats on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) with Independents or members of parties other than the two-party tyranny (our word, not hers). The FEC has six commissioners and historically has been a joint venture between the Republican and Democratic parties, excluding all others–just as the Presidential Debate Commission stolen from the League of Women Voters (LWV) excludes Independents and all others.

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