Category: Key Players

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Genghis Khan to Communism to Public Capitalism

Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Policies, Real Time, Strategy, Threats
John Robb

JOURNAL: The Economic Juggernaut of Genghis Kahn

Global Guerrillas

Some fun thinking for Wednesday…

Here are some of the economic reforms that turned the horde of Genghis Kahn into a steamroller than flattened most of the world's kingdoms/empires.*  He:

  1. Delayed gratification.  He banned the sacking of the enemy's camp/city until all of the fleeing soldiers, baggage, etc. were rounded up.  This radically increased the loot accumulated and ensured it could be shared among all of the participants (he confliscated the wealth of those men that cheated by looting early).
  2. Systematically shared the loot based on contribution and merit.  He disregarded title or status and systematically rewarded loot to everyone in the horde that earned it (the traditional approach was to let a few take it all — sound familiar?).  Of course, that fairness pissed off the nobility since they were used to backroom dealing and hereditary rights.  However, the benefits of this system, were far greater than the costs.  To wit:  He cemented the loyalty of the men and was able to attract thousands to his banner for every noble lost.
  3. Protected those that make sacrifices.  For men killed in the campaign, he paid their share of loot to their widows/orphans posthumously.

*of course, the first unsaid lesson is:  attack the places with the most loot.

The economic strategy of Genghis Kahn works well against any corrupt, top-heavy system (loot rich targets that are defended by nobility + serfs).  Sounds somewhat similar to today's global economic formula.  Of course, it's also important to view this simple but effective strategy as something apart from the figure that used it. For example, a decent/moral decentralized system that replicates this merit based approach could reproduce some of the success Ghengis had against the feudal holdings and petty tyrannies of today's marketplace.

Phi Beta Iota: Brother John raises the spectre of honorable leadership with integrity….that means no rule by secrecy, no earmarks, no back office deals.  Ronald Reagan (thank you Peggy Noonan) had it right: the US Congress [and Executive] is no better than the Soviet Politburo.  ALL “top down” elite systems have failed for lack of integrity (holistic informed analysis).  Populism failed as well–bottom up mobs are no better than corrupt elites for different reasons.  The combination of open information and honest crowds is ripe with potential.  The leaders that enable and empower the public, while revealing the “true cost” of predatory capitalism, virtual colonialism, and unilateral militarism, will go down in history as the Epoch B Founding Fathers.

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Growing Demands for Participatory Democracy

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Policies
Michel Bauwens

Constructing, living, and demanding Participatory Democracy in the #spanishrevolution Camps

Michel Bauwens, 23rd May 2011

We, the unemployed, the underpaid, the subcontracted, the precarious, the young … demand a change towards a future with dignity. We are fed up of reforms, of being laid off, of the banks which have caused the crisis hardening our mortgages or taking away our houses, of laws limiting our freedom in the interest of the powerful. We blame the political and economic powers of our sad situation and we call for a turn.’

Read long post including list of demands and original manifesto.

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Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli: NATO War Crimes

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards
Cynthia McKinney

NATO:  A Feast of Blood

From Tripoli, 24 May 2011

With that as background [moved to end of post], last night's NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable.  A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night, rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.

I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.

I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here–along with white phosphorus.  If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?

Continue reading “Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli: NATO War Crimes”

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Wall Street Journal On Bin Laden Raid Planning

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement, Military
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

More that should never have been written

Wall Street Journal
May 23, 2011
Pg. 1

Spy, Military Ties Aided Bin Laden Raid

By Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes

In January, the chief of the military's elite special-operations troops accepted an unusual invitation to visit Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. There, Adm. William McRaven was shown, for the first time, photos and maps indicating the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man.

Adm. McRaven—one of the first military officers to be brought into the CIA's latest hunt for Osama bin Laden—offered a blunt assessment: Taking bin Laden's compound would be reasonably straightforward. Dealing with Pakistan would be hard.

A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the mission planning shows that this meeting helped define a profound new strategy in the U.S. war on terror, namely the use of secret, unilateral missions powered by a militarized spy operation. The strategy reflects newfound trust between two traditionally wary groups: America's spies, and its troops.

The bin Laden strike was the strategy's “proof of concept,” says one U.S. official.

Read full article….

Continue reading “Wall Street Journal On Bin Laden Raid Planning”

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US JSOG 3000 Night Missions to Kill–Who? Why?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

U.S. seems to be getting good at killing Taliban, but why?

Friday, May 20, 2011  03:07 AM

BY GEORGIE ANNE GEYER

Columbus Dispatch

While the United States keeps trying to forget about Afghanistan, a new secret program in Afghanistan is quietly boasting of bringing about an end to the decade-long war.

The program is “kill/capture,” and it has been waged by the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, for the past year, with, according to PBS’s excellent Frontline, 3,000 operations in only the past 90 days.

Essentially, it sends special forces out in the dark of night into slumbering Afghan villages to force Taliban leaders out of their hiding places and then shoot them or capture them.

There is only one major problem: It appears rather too often that the American intelligence planners are not certain that the men they are killing or capturing are really Taliban. There is, of course, a larger question: Why are we killing and capturing Taliban when this war was supposed to be about al-Qaida?

Read rest of article….

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Carterizing Obama–Netanyhu Tells Him Off…

05 Energy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

This important essay by Robert Parry contextualizes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's arrogant stuffing of President Obama, which took place after Obama gave a weak-kneed speech on the Middle East.  If Parry is right, a really dirty game is in the offing.

And look at the banality of language that provoked Netanhahu: Obama's speech purported to analyze the implications of the Arab Revolt with an analysis that was viewed as being weak, inept, and self centered by some Arabs (e.g., see this cogent analysis of his language) as well as his goals for the pursuit in the Arab-Israeli peace process: namely a return to Israel's 1967 borders, with some land swaps, in return for the security of a Jewish state within these borders (a choice of language that may have been an attempt to appease Netanyahu*).

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*Mr. Obama's language was somewhat ambiguous when he said the primary Israeli-related goal of the peace process was  to establish conditions for Israel as a Jewish state
and the homeland for the Jewish people.” But it does raise a question of whether he is acceding to the sectarian interpretation of a Jewish democracy demanded by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made recognition of Israel as aJewish nation-state a prerequisite for any final agreement with the Palestinians. This kind of sectarian definition in a democracy has unknowable ramifications for the non-Jewish minority making up 20% of Israel's citizens. For a discussion of this issue, see Isabel Kirshner, “Some Question the Existence of Israel as a Jewish State,” New York Times, 24 October 2010.

Netanyahu Sets Limits for Obama

This public rebuke raises questions about whether Netanyahu will now try to sink Obama’s reelection the way earlier Likud leaders undermined President Jimmy Carter

by Robert Parry, Consortium News,  May 21, 2011

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Oval Office rebuke of U.S. President Barack Obama – and the Republicans’ immediate attempt to exploit the dispute to peel away Jewish voters – suggest that American politics may be in for a replay of Campaign 1980.

Continue reading “Carterizing Obama–Netanyhu Tells Him Off…”

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