Graphic: Water Stress & Biodiversity Threat
03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Orientation, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic CoherenceGraphic: Water Stress After Technology
03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Orientation, Policies-Harmonization, Strategy-Holistic Coherence
Chuck Spinney: Obama’s Failure of Intelligence & Integrity
Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Policies
My friend Jeff Madrick, and old fashioned liberal democrat in the best sense of the term, has penned a pithy analysis of the anti-empirical madness now dominating the contemporary American political economy. Jeff concludes that the Right ignores its track record, particularly regarding the clear economic effects of tax cuts, and is rarely challenged on the issue. Madrick is correct. The question is why?
More precisely, why is political debate shaped more by a new dark age of irrational romantic ideology than the by the rationality and empiricism bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution?
For what it worth, here is my answer: Money. (What follows is my view, and should not be attributed to Jeff.)
Look no further than at a Democratic Party that has sold out, and in so doing, forgot its roots, having grown arrogant, effete, and soft in the comfortable aftermath of its dominance under Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson, each of whom, whatever his faults, was at least a fighter. The real problem corrupting our warped politics has less to do with the Right Wing Wrecking Crew than with the rise of wimpish neo-liberal and pro-defense Democrats (e.g., like Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama), who are now being reinforced by the so-called progressives, who are willing to go along with Obama's strategy of appeasing the right wing wreckers, rationalizing that any alternative to Obama will be worse. A more reliable pathway to strategic defeat is hard to imagine. Maybe the wrecking crew's winner-take-all politics of fang and claw ought to be answered by a more principled politics of fang an claw.
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Obama's Failure of Intelligence & Integrity”
Four Weapons Against Humanity
07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), IO Secrets, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the commons,
But lets the greater villain loose
That steals the commons from the goose.
– 16th century English rhyme
March 23, 2011
Four weapons
Posted by leavergirl under civ, problem of power, traps
Anthropologists have noted three main pathways to power. I say there are four. And out of these pathways come four types of weapons used against us, and four types of weapon industries. One of these has been obvious to all, two became more and more visible as the 20th century progressed, and the last needs far greater exposure than it 
has received. What are those weapons? What are the main ways to inflict damage on human beings by those who seek to dominate?
Read concise elegant discussion of each of the following:
1. Physical Weapons .. 2. Economic Weapons .. 3. Ideological Weapons including Religion & Rote Education .. 4. Government as a Weapon
Phi Beta Iota: There are two literatures that are relevant here, the first represented by such books as Tragedy & Hope and its introductory companion the Naked Capitalist, and the second by a less well known but amply robust literature on the sovereign individual. A general strike and a refusal to pay taxes are the legitimate last resort of an abused public. Similarly, a public demand for Electoral Reform, absent which the legitimacy of any government is ended in the eyes of all, can be equally compelling. The times they are a'changing. We have high hopes for 2012 as the year of awakening and reconciliation based on truth.
See Also:
9/11 Questions Linger Ten Years Later
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Secrets, MilitaryFor Activists, Architects, 9/11 Questions Linger Ten Years Later
GLORIA TATUM 4-30-2011 Atlanta Progressive News
With additional reporting by Matthew Cardinale, News Editor.
[The purpose of this article is not to hypothesize what the real story behind the Towers' collapse is, but to address what we find to be reasonable and compelling questions about the government's official account.]
(APN) ATLANTA — It will be ten years since September 11, 2001, in just a few months. And yet some of the most basic and fundamental questions about what happened that day–based upon physics and the forensic science of structural engineering–in the collapse of three towers at the World Trade Center in New York, still linger.
Groups such as Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (A&E), founded by Richard Gage; and We Are Change Atlanta want to re-examine the evidence regarding the collapse of all three buildings.
Bin Laden Show 76: Egyptian Faction Betrays BL
04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Non-GovernmentalAl Qaida: In a recent meeting, presumably in Pakistan, al Qaida's council elected Saifal Adel (Abu Saif), one of the early members of al-Qaida, as chief of the party Command of Control for the time being, sources told the Pakistani news service, The News. However, Muhammad Mustafa Yamni is likely to be made al-Qaida chief after a grand consultation. Yamni is currently residing in an African country.
Saifal Adel is an Egyptian and has served at key posts in Egypt terrorist groups. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri in the al-Jihad group of Egypt. Zawahiri was bin Laden's number two. The News reported that Zawahiri would continue holding his posts of al-Qaida patron, and the chief of the al-Qaida Militant Command. Zawahiri also will monitor the international contacts, a task that had been done by Saifal Adel.
The News' sources reported that Adnan al-Kashri had been placed in charge of general information affairs. Muhammad Nasir al-Washi (Abu Nasir) is now in charge of al-Qaida Africa affairs and Muhammad Adam Khan Afghani was appointed to direct Afghanistan-Waziristan affairs. Fahad al-Qava had been appointed as the Urgent Operational Commander.
Comment: The day after bin Laden's death, an Asia Times on Line analyst reported that the Saudi (bin Laden) faction and the Egyptian (Zawahiri) faction had had a falling out over leadership and policy direction. The full details of the policy split are not known, but what is known is that Zawahiri publicly supported the Pakistan Taliban in their moves to try to overthrow the government of Pakistan, under Musharraf and under the elected civilians. This included the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Bin Laden never associated himself with that policy. Bin Laden seems to have favored sensational attacks against Western targets over consolidating a base in Pakistan by taking over the government.
The Egyptians marginalized bin Laden. The lack of security and staff at Abbottabad – a single body guard – indicates bin Laden was a figurehead and a symbol, more than a hands-on commander. The computer disks and thumb drives, in this theory, call to mind Hitler with his war maps in the bunker in Berlin.
According to the Asia Times report, the Egyptian faction delivered the identity and movements of bin Laden's trusted courier to US intelligence and the courier was aware that he was being tracked so that he could lead US intelligence to the Abbottabad house. The courier was a key actor in an al Qaida intelligence operation to eliminate the Saudi faction and permit the Egyptians to take control.
The operation appears to have worked. The leadership selections, reported by The News, support the hypothesis of betrayal by the Egyptians. No Saudis are in senior leadership positions. Until the promotion of Abu Saif and other non-Saudis to leadership positions, the Asia Times report was just one hypothesis.
Based on statements by Zawahiri, al Qaida may be expected to help the Pakistani Taliban to try to seize control in Pakistan. For them, Pakistan is the objective, not Afghanistan.
Bin Laden Show 74: More Doubts
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Military
AP Sources: Raiders Knew Mission A One-Shot Deal
By KIMBERLY DOZIER
Sacramento Bee, May 17, 2011
WASHINGTON — Those who planned the secret mission to get Osama bin Laden in Pakistan knew it was a one-shot deal, and it nearly went terribly wrong.
The U.S. deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan, and predicted that national outrage over the breach of Pakistani sovereignty would make it impossible to try again if the raid on bin Laden's suspected redoubt came up dry.
Once the raiders reached their target, things started to go awry almost immediately, officials briefed on the operation said.
Phi Beta Iota: None of this makes sense and it includes some deliberate lies–for example, the military phonetic for G is Golf, not Geronimo, these people are making stuff up as they go along. We still do not understand the five helicopters when five special operations officers with silenced weapons coming in through the front door would have been more than enough, using a single stealth helicopter for extraction only. The CIA observation post combined with micro-drone surveillance was more than enough to get to an accurate assessment of numbers and weapons. With Blackwater blown in Abbottabad a full year prior to this operation, it all simply does not add up.
