John Steiner: Tea Party & Occupy Finding Common Ground — Will They – And Independents and the Little Disenfranchised Parties – Converge in Time?

09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
John Steiner

This morning I got this note from Co-Intelligence Institute board member Lyn Manju Bazzell, who lives in Ashland, a town in southern Oregon's Rogue Valley:

“A little news from the Rogue Valley:  went to a meeting with 200 people last night.  It was a panel of 2 Tea Party leaders and 2 Occupy leaders in the Rogue Valley answering questions from the audience. A very positive move for our area!  Jeff Golden put it together with some help and there is a desire for ongoing conversations for the Rogue Valley. It is an outgrowth of one of  his Immense Possibilities episodes that included these 4 people. Yea for Jeff  – he's a mensch!

“Here are some areas of common ground that were shared by the panel:  Personal liberty issues; Homeland Security; Election reform – concern about voting machines; lobbying; self-reliance; importance of local action; concentration of power in the hands of the elites (a bit of difference re: who is really holding the power, with the Tea Party focused on government and Occupy on big business, but the identification of lobbying as an issues offers an open window into a deeper discussion; size of the military and our aggressive global orientation (this was a surprise to me for Tea Partiers).”

An hour later I received the following article from Lance Bisaccia:

Tea party, Occupy supporters find they have many similarities

Two groups come together at forum; avoid ‘hot debate'
By John Darling for the Tidings Posted: 2:00 AM April 24, 2012

In their first public outing together, tea party and Occupy backers — and an audience of 200 — found a lot of common ground on the issue that corporations, lobbyists, the military and the federal government have a huge amount of power, are “bought” — and aren't very responsive to the needs of the average person.

David Swanson: What Bradley Manning Means to Us All…

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, Blog Wisdom, IO Secrets
David Swanson

What Bradley Manning Means to Us

By David Swanson

Chase Madar's new book, The Passion of Bradley Manning, pulls together the essential facts that we should try to somehow deliver to television viewers and victims of our education system.  The subtitle is “The Story of the Suspect Behind the Largest Security Breach in U.S. History.”

The book looks at Manning's life story, his alleged action (leaking voluminous materials to Wikileaks), the value of the material he made available to us, the status of whistleblowers in our country, the torture inflicted on Manning during his imprisonment, the similar treatment routinely inflicted on hundreds of thousands of U.S. prisoners without the same scandal resulting, and the value of running a society in accordance with written laws.

The table of contents sounds predictable, but the most valuable parts of Madar's book are the tangents, the riffs, the expansions on questions such as whether knowing the truth does or does not tend to set us free.  Does learning what our government is up to help to improve our government's behavior?  Has the rule of law become an empty phrase or worse?  Who is standing up for Bradley Manning, and who should be?

Read full essay. 

Josh Kilbourn: US Leads Developed Nations In Percent of People In ‘Low Wage Work’

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Josh Kilbourn

US Leads Developed Nations In Percent of People In ‘Low Wage Work'

Research shows the US is a low wage country
By Mark Thoma
April 23, 2012

(MoneyWatch) – Recent research from John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research shows that the US leads developed countries in the share of workers earning low wages. The research also shows that increased wage polarization over the last several decades is one of the reasons for the large share of low wage-work in the US. The bars in this graph represent the share of workers in low wage work, where low wage work is defined as employees earning less than 2/3 of the median wage (approximately $10 per hour or $20,000 per year). In this category, the US leads among developed nations…

Research Shows that US is a ‘low wage' country

Click on Image to Enlarge

DefDog: Counter-IED Network Analysis – Works for Law Enforcement, Ignored by US Military

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Ethics, Intelligence (government), IO Sense-Making, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call
DefDog

When we worked on the Manhunting Project for SOCOM, the US Marshall's Service said that fugitive hunting was all about network analysis. The IC doesn't understand network analysis as the bean counters push for numbers….they focus on low hanging fruit and as a result there is always some guy out there ready to step up and take the foot soldier's place (not so much the upper echelons). Try to tell an IC drone that it is all about the network and you will get a deer in the headlight look….

The REAL Jack Bauer

Contributor:  Louis DeAnda

Police forces have spent decades combating organised crime with well-practised techniques, but can the same tactics be the key to defeating insurgencies on the front line? Former police officer, federal marshal, and JIEDDO FOX team member Louis J. DeAnda tells Defence IQ how we need to take a holistic strategy to IED network attack…

Phi Beta Iota:  Completely apart from the corruption at the top of both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, this is an extraordinary–a gifted–contribution to the literature.  It is reproduced in full below the line to preserve it as a reference.

Continue reading “DefDog: Counter-IED Network Analysis – Works for Law Enforcement, Ignored by US Military”

James Wall: Israel to Palestine is as Britain to Slavery – “Throw Their Dirty Little Ships Out of the Water” — Tide Turning Against Israeli Atrocities

04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 | Posted by
Historical parallels are never exact. But it is not unusual for us to see moments from the past resonating with moments of the present.
About the author: James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine.

He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. His website: Wall Writings.

EXTRACT:

I propose no firm historical linkage between slavery and Occupation, but I do propose a linkage between the demand for action called for by John Newton against slavery, and the passage of a divestment resolution by United Methodist General Conference delegates as a 21st century demand for the UMC to halt its financial support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people.

It is well past time to “throw this dirty, filthy Occupation out of United Methodist waters”.

Full article with video and illustrated inserts.

Phi Beta Iota:  The continuing economic and political crisis in the USA, one that may escalate to a civil war as well as a national crime wave in 2013, has limited US public outrage against Israel.  However, there are many weak signals that the tide has turned — not only are Americans outraged the role played by Goldman Sachs and the Jewish Chairmen of the Federal Reserve in the destruction of the global and the US domestic economies, but also at the role played by Jewish money and Israeli dominatrix methods in US politics.  We see the day coming when Israel is treated to financial sanctions much as South Africa was.  The Israeli government is to the Palestinians as the white South African government was to the people of color in South Africa.  Justice will have its day in Palestine; we pray this be so.

Jon Lebkowsky: 21st Century New Sources & Methods for Journalism

11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Media, Methods & Process, Mobile
Jon Lebkowsky

International Symposium on Online Journalism: New approaches in engaging with the news community

ISOJ Program

Angela Lee: Audience preference and editorial judgment: a study of time-lagged influence in online news

To what extent are audiences influencing editors and journalists, and vice versa? Editorial judgement measured based on placement on paper; audience preference measured by clicks, looking at a 3-hour interval. Audience preference influences editorial decisions three hours later (which suggests editors are watching behavior and responding). However not seeing a reciprocal effect of editorial judgement on audiences.

I’m wondering if the results are influenced by assumptions embedded in the structure of the methodology for the report.

Some popular stories get pushed down on the home page, not sure why? Could be relevance of speed and immediacy – stories might be pushed down to make room for fresh content. Lee calls for input from journalists at the conference.

Alfred Hermida (who’s also been live blogging the conference, and who wrote the book on Participatory Journalism).

Sourcing the Arab Spring: A case study of Andy Carvin’s sources during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. How is sourcing evolving in the networked social sphere?

“We looked at sourcing, because sourcing matters.” Who we talk to as journalists affects not just what we report, but the meaning we derive from the reporting. When journalists cite non-elite sources or alternative voices, we treat them as deviant, as the others. Powerful and privileged dominate sourcing.

Carvin was doing a very different type of reporting, messaging and retweeting on Twitter. Carvin was like a “must-read newswire” (per Columbia Journalism Review). 162 sources in Tunisia, 185 sources in Egypt. Coded into categories: mainstream media, institutional elites, alternative voices, and other. Alternative voices included people involved in the protests.

Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: 21st Century New Sources & Methods for Journalism”

Patrick Meier: Building Egypt 2.0: When Institutions Fail, Crowdsourcing Surges

11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO
Patrick Meier

Building Egypt 2.0: When Institutions Fail, Crowdsourcing Surges

I recently presented at Where 2.0 and had the chance to catch Adel Youssef’s excellent talk on “How Location Based Services is Used to Build Egypt 2.0.” He shared some important gems on digital activism. For example, while Facebook allowed Egyptians to “like” a protest event or say they were headed to the streets, check-in’s were a more powerful way to recruit others because they let your friends know that you were actively in the location and actually protesting. In other words, activists were not checking into a place per se, but rather creating an event and checking into that to encourage people to participate in said event.

Includes video and more information.