Josh Kilbourn: 50 Economic Numbers About USA – Frightening!

03 Economy, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Joshua Kilbourn

50 Economic Numbers About The US That Are “Almost Too Crazy To Believe”

Tyler Durden on 12/16/2011

The Economic Collapse Blog does a terrific job of periodically putting together a compilation of the scariest data points about the US economy. Today is one such day, and the list of 50 economic numbers presented is indeed, as the author puts it, “almost too crazy to believe“… Almost. As noted: “At this time of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation usually gets around to politics at some point.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic crisis with your family and friends.  If we all work together, hopefully we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that “business as usual” will result in a national economic apocalypse.” Or, far more likely, 99% of the population can continue watching Dancing with the Stars, as what little wealth remains is terminally transferred to those who are paying attention right below everyone's eyes.

From the Ecopnomic Collapse Blog:

The following are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe….

#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

49 remaining items below the line.

Continue reading “Josh Kilbourn: 50 Economic Numbers About USA – Frightening!”

Berto Jongman: The Kandahar Audio Casette Collection – Central to Understanding Emergence of Al Qaeda Prior to 9/11

09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Audio, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence
A collection of more than 1500 audiocassettes from Kandahar.  The collection is central to understanding al-Qaida's emergence as an organisation before 9/11.
A first inventarisation and description can be found in: Flagg Miller. Insight from Bin Laden's audiocassette library in Kandahar. CTC Sentinel, 4(10), October 2011.
An analysis of Flag Miler can also be found in : J.Deol, Z. Kazmi (Eds) Contextualizing jihadi thought. New York: Horst & Company, Columbia University Press, 2012.

NIGHTWATCH: Push-Back on US Across AF PK IR SY

02 Diplomacy, 04 Education, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Government, IO Multinational

In summary:  US took ten years to make an issue of two Pakistani fertilizer factories that are the primary source for all Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) killing and maiming in AF.  Taliban gets what it wants in AF school programs, Iran makes progress in AF, SY and on the side with Saudi Arabia.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Push-Back on US Across AF PK IR SY”

Mini-Me: Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC)

01 Brazil, 03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Click on Image to Enlarge

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Spanish: Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, CELAC, Portuguese: Comunidade de Estados Latino-Americanos e Caribenhos, French: Communauté des États Latino-Américains et Caribéens, Dutch: Gemeenschap van de Latijns-Amerikaanse en Caribische landen) is the tentative name[1] of a regional bloc of Latin American and Caribbean nations created on February 23, 2010, at the Rio GroupCaribbean Community Unity Summit held in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico.[2][3] It consists of all sovereign countries in the Americas, except for Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United States. British and Danish dependencies in the Americas are also not represented in CELAC.

CELAC is an example of a decade-long push for deeper integration within the Americas.[4] CELAC is being created to deepen Latin American integration and to reduce the once overwhelming influence of the United States on the politics and economics of Latin America, and is seen as an alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS), the regional body organized largely by Washington in 1948, ostensibly as a countermeasure to potential Soviet influence in the region.[4][5] [6]

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC)”

Tom Atlee: Sources of the Occupy Movement Part III

11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking
Tom Atlee

Part I:  Sources of the Occupy Movement

Part II:  Influence of Activist Arts & Video Game Culture

Part III:  Ongoing Movements and Organizing

Feminist and anti-oppression activists, the human potential movement, and other ongoing organizers and movements for human betterment have played important roles in the emergence and nature of the Occupy movement. (The articles below are just a few examples.) Such movements have been organizing demonstrations, communities and networks and transforming people's consciousness and behavior in one form or another for hundreds of years. They've been training and empowering people and exposing them to the dark side of the social systems they live in and the possibilities for a better world, even as they themselves have become more experienced, aware, and skilled at new ways of living and being together.

Many people became leaders and practitioners of these organizing and transformational skills, forming a dispersed pool of resources for disparate transformational activities over the last many decades. The high purpose, tremendous passion, propitious timing, evocative non-specificity and intense community of OWS attracted a wide variety of these folks to its various centers of activity – the Occupations themselves – and into diverse support, leadership, and teaching roles. And then much was learned, experienced, created, modified… Had there been no past movement activities generating this pool of experience and skill, the Occupy movement would have looked very different indeed. And now the Occupy movement itself has become part of that ongoing learning, deepening, evolving collective experience…

As Occupy encampments are broken up by authorities, various commentators wonder if the movement is falling apart. They forget that through the activities of OWS in the last several months, tens of thousands of people have not only been inspired but have also taken leaps in awareness, experience and skill and that new leaders have emerged and new networks and groups have formed and new questions are being asked by newly focused and empowered citizens. The fact that this development is diffuse and nonlinear does not mean it does not exist. It only means that mainstream eyes will not necessarily recognize the new forms in which it will surface, over and over and over, expanding and adapting as it goes.

As one OWS sign insightfully said – in words whose significance not everyone will grasp – “This is a movement, not a protest.”

I have a feeling we ain't seen nothin' yet…

Blessings on the Journey. It has been a long time.

Coheartedly,
Tom

Read full post with sources.

DefDog: Washington’s Integrity Part N to the Nth

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
DefDog

More of the lack of integrity and the bilking of the middle class…..

Mr. Corzine Goes to Washington, With No Pull

William D. Cohan

Bloomberg.com, 11 December 2011

When it comes to shining a light on the cozy relationships between Wall Street and Washington, and how the rich and powerful get access to things the rest of us don’t, there can never be too many juicy examples.

Last month, thanks to Bloomberg Markets magazine, we were treated to the excellent story about how former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with a bunch of bankers and hedge fund managers in New York during the summer of 2008 and shared with them some of his early thinking on the futures of the mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Then, last week, Jon Corzine, the former chief executive officer of the defunct MF Global Inc. with a gold-plated resume — he was also a senior partner of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a U.S. senator and governor of New Jersey — testified before the House Agriculture Committee about his often-successful campaign to thwart the efforts of Washington regulators to enact rules that he and MF Global didn’t like.

Read full story.

See Also:

2012 Reflexivity = Integrity: Toward Earth/Life 4.0

Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both

Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP

Chuck Spinney: Bombing Iran . . . Soon

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military
Chuck Spinney

Shaping the Popular Psyche in America's Post-Information Era:  Why the US & Israel May Agree to Bombing Iran

by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

Counterpunch, December 12, 2011

The arguments for attacking Iran are crazy, like those for attacking Iraq in response to 9-11. But that does not mean such an attack by the American and/or the Israelis will not occur.

Indeed, I think the political pressure for such an attack is increasing.  My reasons for saying this are as follows:

On 11 October, Patrick Seale wrote a very important essay, Will Israel Bomb Iran.  Seale described secret internal deliberations in the Israeli government over the twin questions of (1) how short a time window existed for Israel to launch a sneak attack on Iran and (2) how to suck in the United States into supporting such an attack, even if an Israeli attack was launched without US approval or if the US was kept in ignorance beforehand?  Seale, who is extremely well connected and very knowledgeable on the Middle Eastern affairs, also reported the Americans knew of the Israeli discussions, and the idea of Israeli decision makers thinking their window of opportunity was closing was causing alarm in Washington.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Bombing Iran . . . Soon”