11 Society – Page 227 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/10/14

Penguin: Patraeus Orders Analysts to Consult Military

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Analysis, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Officers Call

Corruption cubed.

Petraeus tells CIA analysts to heed troops on war

AP, 14 October 2011

WASHINGTON – David Petraeus, the former general who led the Afghanistan war and now heads the CIA, has ordered his intelligence analysts to give greater weight to the opinions of troops in the fight, U.S. officials said.

CIA analysts now will consult with battlefield commanders earlier in the process as they help create elements of a National Intelligence Estimate on the course of the war, to more fully include the military's take on the conflict, U.S. officials say.

Robert Steele: Electoral Reform in a Box (DIY Kit)

03 Economy, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Hacking, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Office of Management and Budget, Strategy

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

SHORT-CUT

http://tinyurl.com/ER-DIY

I fear that everyone is losing the perfect opportunity to demand electoral reform. Here is what I have done on this with zero traction. Based on discussions in NYC I have dropped the Coalition Cabinet for now and am focusing only on Electoral Reform, but if we really are to change this system, an Independent candidate with a Coalition Cabinet has to defeat BOTH Obama AND the Republican challenger. I don't see that emergent at this point.

My Interpretation of the Emerging Message:

CORRUPTION is the common enemy, both in government and in the private sector.

ELECTORAL REFORM is the singular demand.

SUNSHINE CABINET is the method.

INTEGRITY is the core value.

COMMONWEALTH RESTORED is the outcome.

Pertinent Documents for Consideration (Links Repaired 2011-10-25)

#OWS #ElectoralReform Strategy Memorandum

#ElectoralReform #OWS Two-Sided Demand Hand-Out

Electoral Reform Working Group Preliminary 2 Pages (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

lectoral Reform Statement of Demand 3.2 (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Electoral Reform Act of 2012 3.2 (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

Robert Steele: Working Papers for NYC 6-7 Oct 2011

2011/10/122011/10/12

Cynthia McKinney: US & Israel Against Africa & Arabia

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Government, Hill Letters & Testimony, Legislation

Cynthia McKinney, 10 October 2011.

Third of Four Installments on Libya: Israel and Libya

Once again, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya peels away the veneer of legitimacy and deception enveloping the U.S./NATO genocide currently taking place in Libya. In his first article, Nazemroaya exposed the mechanism by which the world came to “know” of the need for a humanitarian intervention in the Libyan Arab Jamahirya and U.S./NATO admissions of targeted assassination attempts against the Leader of the 1969 Libyan Revolution, Muammar Qaddafi. In his first of these four installments since his return from Libya, Nazemraoya makes it clear that there never was any evidence given to the United Nations or the International Criminal Court to warrant or justify United Nations Resolutions 1970 and 1973 or current U.S./NATO operations inside Libya.

Continue reading “Cynthia McKinney: US & Israel Against Africa & Arabia”

2011/10/12

David Isenberg: 9/11 and the Rule of Law – What We Still Do Not Know Ten Years Later

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

After September 11: What We Still Don’t Know

David Cole

New York Review of Books, 29 September 2011

EXTRACT

Because so much was done under the veil of secrecy, much remains unknown about the extent of the illegality. Mark Danner’s publication in these pages of the Red Cross’s report on the abusive interrogations of “high-value” detainees provides a glimpse at the horrors US agents inflicted.⁴ But we do not even know how many people US officials have abducted, rendered, disappeared, tortured, or killed. We do not know the extent of the injuries suffered, and still being suffered, by those we abused. We still know relatively little about the mistreatment of most of the Guantánamo detainees. We have not apologized to even a single victim—not even to those, like Canadian citizen Maher Arar and German citizen Khaled al-Masri, who were targeted for renditions and torture based on misinformation, and have been cleared of any wrongdoing themselves.

Meanwhile, our former president in his memoir has proudly proclaimed that he personally authorized waterboarding—a practice we prosecuted as torture in the past when it was used against our troops. The former vice-president recently replied affirmatively when asked whether waterboarding should “still be a tool” of interrogation. Failing to condemn such blatant wrongdoing in some official way leaves an open wound both for the victims and for the integrity of our system, and implies that the tactics were neither lawless nor immoral. The rule of law may be tenacious when it is supported, but violations of it that go unaccounted corrode its very foundation.

All of which only underscores the continuing need for an engaged civil society committed to the ideals of liberty and law. The past decade suggests that the rule of law may be stronger than cynics thought. It teaches that adherence to values of liberty, equality, and dignity is more likely to further than to obstruct our security interests. But it also illustrates our collective reluctance to confront our past, a reluctance that threatens to erode our most important values.

Read full story.

2011/10/122011/10/12

Mini-Mi: Top 5 Facts About America’s Richest 1%

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

The Top 5 Facts About America’s Richest 1%

VIDEO

The American dream is alive and well for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, but unfortunately, if you are in the other 99% the jury is still out.

“America is obviously a country where you can go from being middle class to upper class, but right now class mobility has sort of collapsed in the United States,” says Zaid Jilani, senior reporter for the progressive think tank ThinkProgress.org. (See: America's Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts)

This grim reality is in part the impetus for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which, now in its fourth week, will take to the streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side Tuesday in what it is calling the “Millionaire's March.” Demonstrators will rally outside the homes of some of the city's wealthiest, including News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, to protest New York state's 2% millionaire tax set to expire at the end of the year.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, The Daily Ticker wanted to find out just how rich America's super-rich 1% really is. Jilani recently compiled the following research, entitled How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent of Americans.

As discussed in the accompanying interview, here's what Jilani outlined on his blog:

Continue reading “Mini-Mi: Top 5 Facts About America's Richest 1%”

2011/10/122011/10/12

Koko: Participatory Budget Takes Root in USA

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government

Participatory Budgeting – A Method to Empower Local Citizens & Communities

“Participatory Budgeting” (PB) is a process that allows citizens to decide directly how to allocate all or part of a public budget, typically through a series of meetings, work by community “delegates” or representatives, and ultimately a final vote. It was first implemented in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1990, and has since spread.

PB has recently taken root in Canadian and American soils.

Chicago’s 49th Ward, for example, uses this process to distribute $1.3 million of annual discretionary funds. The ward’s residents have praised the opportunity to make meaningful decisions, take ownership over the budget process, and win concrete improvements for their neighborhood – community gardens and sidewalk repairs to street lights and public murals. The initiative proved so popular that the ward’s alderman, Joe Moore, credits PB with helping to reverse his political fortunes.

The wave is not stopping in Chicago, either. Elected officials and community leaders elsewhere – from New York City to San Francisco and from Greensboro, N.C. to Springfield, Mass. – are considering launching similar initiatives.

Sources:

“Government can’t solve budget battles? Let citizens do it.” Daniel Altschuler and Josh Lerner, The Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2011.

“Chicago’s Participatory Budgeting Experiment” Nicole Summers, Shareable. April 6, 2011.

Student Researcher: Allison Holt, San Francisco State University

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows, San Francisco State University

2011/10/112011/10/22

#OWS #ElectoralReform Strategy Memorandum

11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Hacking, Memoranda

Restoring the Republic – One People – One Voice – One Community

Grand Strategy is about combining means (inputs) and ways
to achieve ends (outcomes).

In very general terms, the strategic outcomes that appear to be sought by the mélange of participants in the emerging nation-wide—even global—rebellion against the existing system—center around social justice as in justice for society at large. This is essentially a repudiation of the existing system in three parts: the electoral system that perpetuates a two-party tyranny; the governance system that trades 5% earmarks for 95% discounted disbursements of the public treasure; and a banking and corporate system that refuses to factor in both true costs to the public, or consider the public interest. It is a rigged system of, by, and for the 1%.

There are at least three outcomes that can be considered and two ways.

Constitutional Amendment. In the ideal, the corruption of the legislative and executive processes must be removed by enacting a Constitutional Amendment. In the USA, enacting an amendment requires either passage by two thirds of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, followed by approval by three-fourths of all state legislatures. Since the two-party tyranny owns both the federal and the state legislatures, it is virtually certain that this will never come to pass in isolation. It could, however, be made possible by first pursuing Electoral Reform.

Electoral Reform Act. Over the past thirty years a number of very specific proposals have been made to expand the existing two-party electoral system rife with fraud at all levels. Nine specific measures have been put together by a team drawing on best available sources. Those nine measures include:

01 Open Ballot Access
02 Make It Easier to Vote
03 Honest Open Debates
04 Instant Run-Off/Paper Ballots
05 Expanded Debates (Cabinet)
06 Full and Balanced Representation
07 Tightly-Drawn Districts
08 Full Public Funding of Diverse Candidates
09 No Legislation without Consultation

A tenth provision would have an honest Congress and an honest Executive championing the Constitutional Amendment, but passing the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 in time for Phase I (provisions 01-05) to take effect for November 2012. This objective is achievable! A nation-wide demand presented by 6 November with a demand for resolution by 15 February—or face a General Strike—has a possibility for success such as has never existed here-to-fore. This has the added advantage of opening the way for an Independent candidate for President, and for opening ballot access to the full spectrum of potential candidates, not just those approved by the two-party system, thereby cleansing the Senate and House of Representatives of corrupt partisans.

Secession & Nullification. There are no fewer than ten active secessionist movements in the USA:

01 Alaska
02 Florida
03 Georgia
04 Hawaii
05 League of the South
06 South Carolina
07 Texas
08 Vermont
09 Republic of Lakotah
10 Pacific Northwest/Cascadia

Among them, Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont are the most persistent. States also have the right to nullify federal mandates, and in the future we may see the Western states and especially Alaska repossess state lands set aside as federal preserves. A dissolution of the USA is unlikely at this time, but could become a reality if there is a total collapse of the economy and the government, at which point localized resilience movements will spring up and independence from federal taxation and federal regulation will become the norm.

Ways to the first two ends include a General Strike (massive absenteeism) and a General Boycott (of all corporate goods less true essentials, withdrawal of all funds from banks and stocks)—or both.

Electoral Reform as a capital demand, presented by 6 November and demanded by 15 February, is in my view the only means of avoiding secession and eventually securing a Constitutional Amendment. St.

Original as Published