Key Players – Page 210 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/01/292011/01/29

Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Threats

NIGHTWATCH Complete Report for 28 January 2011

Jordan: Protesters across Jordan called for the government to step down. In Amman, more than 5,000 marched. Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans, blamed the government for rising prices and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai.

Egypt: Today was the Day of Rage and so it has been. Roughly an hour after Friday prayers, the demonstrations began in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria, then spread and continued into the night. Buildings were set alight; curfews ignored and the Army moved in. The night closed with President Mubarak's mildly concessional speech which promises to incite the protesters, more than placate them. Expect more confrontations on 29 January.

Special comment: Background. Research and analysis of more than 50 internal instability episodes since 1980, NightWatch has tracked order in what appears to be chaotic security situations. Once internal discontent metamorphoses into a breakdown of public order, the government begins searching for a set of responses that will halt the decline in its fortunes. A government will follow a three-phase cycle in applying different ideas and resources alternately to placate or crush an insurrection or to buy time to try to find “a line it can hold.” That phrase refers to a set of actions over an expanse of national territory that will stabilize internal conditions.

If the government finds a set of responses that match the protestors' grievances, the downward cycle can be halted. If not, it will continue until the government falls or is changed, usually by the Army, the ultimate guardians of the state.

Below the line: complete NightWatch analytics, followed by comment on Davies J-Curve and Power of the Powerless.

Continue reading “Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!”

2011/01/282011/01/29

Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

Al-Jazeera's Revolution?

For all the talk about hashtags and Facebook, al-Jazeera is the primary vector of this democratic infection. Most Tunisians first learned of the early protests in Sidi Bouzid from al-Jazeera. Egyptians watched the overthrow of Ben Ali on al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera broadcast the Egyptian mass demonstrations to the Yemenis. Social media may be important pathways for secondary infection, but this is an al-Jazeera revolution.

‘We are witnessing today an Arab people's revolution'

Today's Arab revolution is no less significant than those that preceded it in recent decades in Eastern Europe and Latin America. This time, Arabs are not being led by their leaders — from colonialism to pan-Arabism or Islamism or any other “ism” — as was the case in the past.

Propelled by the young and the digital revolution, citizens will demand nothing less than the right to choose and change their representatives in the future.

Continue reading “Stronger Signals: REVOLUTION…”

2011/01/282011/01/31

Egyptian Protests Live Video (Al Jazeera) / “Revolution-in-Progress”

08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Comment: Kuwait gov paying citizens money and food mentioned during the broadcast as a move to pacify and prevent uprisings by Kuwait citizens.

Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

Continue reading “Egyptian Protests Live Video (Al Jazeera) / “Revolution-in-Progress””

2011/01/272011/01/27

Open Source Insurgency: No More Corruption

About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Historic Contributions, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Threats

A Plausible Promise

by John Robb of Global Guerrillas

For an open source revolt (here's some background on “open source insurgency“) to be successfully formed, it needs a plausible promise. A meta issue around which all of the different factions etc. can form (remember, most of the groups and individuals involved in an open source revolt can't agree on anything but some basic concepts). A generic “day of revolt” doesn't accomplish that. What could?

Using the multi-million scale No Mas FARC protests as an example and the critical ingredient in the Tunisian protests (extreme corruption that generated an endless wellspring of anger/frustration), a potential “plausible promise” for an Egyptian open source revolt is:

No More Corruption

Not only is a movement opposing corruption something the government will find hard to oppose, it is something every Egyptian deals with on a daily basis. It also has the added benefit of directly harming the entrenched ruling elite, who are likely to become poster children of the very thing the movement is against.

Emerging Concept of Open Stewardship

Reference: Peace versus War–Competing Visions

Reference: WikiLeaks and Al Qaeda as Open Source Insurgencies

Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

2011/01/25

Where Does the Money Go?

01 Brazil, 02 China, 03 Economy, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

http://www.publicagenda.org/wheredoesthemoneygo

The Top Ten Foreign Holders of U.s. Debt in November 2009:

Country Amount

China, Mainland                      $789.6 billion
Japan                                         $757.3 billion
U.K.                                            $277.5 billion

Oil Exporters $187.7 billion
(including Ecuador,
Venezuela, Indonesia,
Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates,
Algeria, Gabon, Libya,
and Nigeria)

Caribbean Banking Centers $179.8 billion
(includes the Bahamas,
Bermuda, Cayman Islands,
Netherlands Antilles,
Panama, and British Virgin Islands)

Brazil                                                                                 $157.1 billion
Hong Kong                                                                        $146.2 billion
Russia                                                                                  $128.1 billion
Luxembourg                                                                     $91.7 billion
Taiwan                                                                                 $78.4 billion

Source: Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board as reported in CRS report The Federal Government Debt: Its Size and Economic Signifcance, Feb. 3, 2010. http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL31590_20100203.pdf.

2011/01/212011/01/21

Event: 5-7 Aug 2011, Kottayam, Kerala, India; Conf on Recycling & Reuse of Materials (Polymers, Wood, Leather, Glass, Metals, Ceramics, Semi Conductors, Water etc) and their products

03 Environmental Degradation, 03 India, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 12 Water, Waste (materials, food, etc)

This conference will be one of the big International meetings exclusively dedicated to Recycling and Reuse of Materials and their Products. The conference will be extremely useful in the sense that it will be attended by hundreds of Chemists, Physicists, Technologists and Engineers, making it a truly interdisciplinary conference. The goal of the conference emphasizes interdisciplinary research on processing, morphology, structure, properties and applications of recycling and reuse of materials and their products and their applications in automotive, civil, chemical, aerospace, computer and marine engineering.

This symposium will bring together a panel of highly-accomplished experts in the field of Recycling and Reuse of Materials and their Products. Talks will encompass basic studies and applications and will address topics of novel issues. During the three-day conference, we will listen to recognized authorities in the field as they discuss recent advances, difficulties, and breakthroughs in the field of recycling and reuse of materials and their products. The conference will feature keynote addresses, a number of plenary sessions, invited talks and contributed lectures focusing on specific tenets of recycling and reuse of materials and their products additionally, there will be several poster sessions, and four best poster presentations will be selected for the award. The conference is to be held on 5th, 6th and 7th, August 2011.
Continue reading “Event: 5-7 Aug 2011, Kottayam, Kerala, India; Conf on Recycling & Reuse of Materials (Polymers, Wood, Leather, Glass, Metals, Ceramics, Semi Conductors, Water etc) and their products”

2011/01/212011/01/21

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Tunisian Political Theater

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

NIGHTWATCH EXTRACT Tunisia: Update. The Tunisian army fired into the air to disperse protesters from the headquarters of former President Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally (CDR) in Tunis. The CDR has been disbanded but some demonstrators want the building razed. The state of emergency remains in effect.

The interim government met for the first time today. The session concluded with a number of decrees.

The government ordered a general amnesty for all political prisoners, reduction of the curfew everywhere except Tunis, and the reopening of schools and universities next Monday. It also agreed to recognize all previously banned political parties and declared three days of mourning for the 78 people killed during the recent uprising.

In his address, the interim president and former Speaker of the Parliament stressed the temporary character of this government, and determined its tasks to be:

– to make sure that all enterprises get back to normal business;

– to prepare for the forthcoming presidential elections.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: The interim president and the prime minister both resigned from the RCD, in which both had been longstanding members. They directed other hold-over cabinet members to resign in today's cabinet session.

The political activities are almost surreal. The holdover political leaders apparently think a “do-over” will be sufficient to correct the authoritarian excesses of the past 23 years. Thus far Tunisians are acquiescing in this bizarre exercise. Meanwhile, the economic grievances that gave rise to street demonstrations remain unaddressed.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The well-mannered unethical among us will be quick to scorn the above headline, but the comment says it all. Buckminster Fuller was among the first in modern history to point out that the White House was theater, and many others have addressed the huge gap between reality and the images that Wall Street and Washington seek to communicate. Advanced cyber-information operations have been perfected by the financial crime network within which the two political parties are fully complicit co-conspirators. There are 63 other parties in America that have been disenfranchised, and the electoral system is as corrupt as any abroad including that of Tunisia. The current financial and political leadership of the USA really thinks that a “do-over” (the other term is “make-over”) will quiet things down. This isn't just moving deck chairs on the sinking Titanic; this is re-arranging deck chairs floating in the icy waters of the North and pretending the ship of state is still there.