Policies – Page 642 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/12/272010/12/27

Reference: 2011 Brave New Dystopia

04 Education, 06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

truthdig, Posted on Dec 27, 2010

By Chris Hedges

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

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2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: Globalization and the Middle Class

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence

Phi Beta Iota: Penguin is a new Contributing Editor who is still learning the system and also undecided about having a bio, even a relatively anonymous one.

This Week on The Globalist
December 18-24, 2010

Middle Class and Globalization: A Big Power Comparison (Part I)

In this time of economic strife, which nation stands to lose the most compared to its own expectations, projected path and historic experiences? The Richter Scale takes a closer look.

Middle Class and Globalization: A Historical Perspective (Part II)

The Richter Scale explores whether the United States is finally getting serious about reinvigorating its middle class.

The Globalist's Top Ten Books of 2010

In this 2010 year-end special, we look back at the best new books featured on The Globalist Bookshelf this year.

The Globalist's Top Ten Features of 2010

As 2010 draws to a close, we present our selection of the most thought-provoking features published on The Globalist this year.

The Top Headlines of 2010

From the economic recession to the World Cup, how did 2010's major events look to the world's headline writers?

2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: USA Economic Decline by Elite Choice

03 Economy, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

Published on Thursday, December 23, 2010 by In These Times

The ‘Repo-Demo’ Party’s Three Phase Austerity Plan for America

Get ready for more of the same failed “job creation” policies, enacted by an increasingly unified political eilte

by Jack Rasmus

The Bush tax cuts are now extended. What cost $3.4 trillion over the past decade, 80% of which accrued to the wealthiest households and U.S. corporations, will now cost another $802 billion over the next two years and a projected $4 trillion over the coming decade.

But the Bush tax cut extension just passed by a political elite increasingly united on economic policy—a ‘Repo-Demo’ Party dominated by corporate interests—is only the first of three phases in a new policy offensive designed to protect the incomes of the wealthy and corporate America for another decade, to be paid for directly by middle- and working-class America. Together, the three phases represent the emerging U.S. variant of a general austerity strategy, similar in objective but different in content to other austerity programs now emerging as well in the Eurozone, Japan and elsewhere.

Phase two: draconian spending cuts

Phase three: revising tax code to help the wealthy

Same wine in same bottles, with new label

The key question: Will any jobs be created?

Obama’s 2011 ‘Stimulus 2’ will thus prove no more effective than his 2009 ‘Stimulus 1.’ The past decade has produced repeated tax-cut heavy policies targeting the rich and corporations: Bush II and a Republican Congress 2001-06. Bush II and a Democratic Congress 2006-08. Obama and a Democratic Congress 2008-10. And now Obama and a de facto Republican Congress.

The recent Bush tax cut extensions show the corporate-dominated political elite of both parties are now closing ranks as the economic crisis continues with no resolution for all but the wealthy and corporations. The ‘Repo-Demo’ Party, newly aligned around the same old failed policies, has just begun to do its work. Get ready for more of the same.

Jack Rasmus is the author of Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression, published in May 2010 by Pluto Press, Palgrave-Macmillan.

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Phi Beta Iota: In the 1990's Tim Hendrickson, at the time one of the best and the brightest at the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) conceptualized GRAND VIEW, a program to look at each couintry in holistic terms to determine a) what direction their science & technology was going in; and b) what their economy could afford in the way of military spending. This was before NGIC was caught fabricating the threat to justify the purchase of weapons and mobility systems that were unaffordable and not needed. We wonder what GRAND VIEW would say about the USA's future, and we wonder if the restoration of integrity within US intelligence might not have an immediate positive effect on personnel, training, concepts & doctrine, and acquisition.

See Also:

Journal: Can the US Economy Recover?

Search: US fraud tri-fecta

2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: US Public Health InfoTech NOT….

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, Communities of Practice, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making

berto small — Berto Jongman Recommends...

Public Health Information Technology: Additional Strategic Planning Needed to Guide HHS's Efforts to Establish Electronic Situational Awareness Capabilities

GAO-11-99 December 17, 2010
A catastrophic public health event could threaten our national security and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties. Recognizing the need for efficient sharing of real-time information to help prevent devastating consequences of public health emergencies, Congress included in the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act in December 2006 a mandate for the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in collaboration with state, local, and tribal public health officials, to develop and deliver to Congress a strategic plan for the establishment and evaluation of an electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability. Pursuant to requirements of the act, GAO reviewed HHS's plans for and status of efforts to implement these capabilities, described collaborative efforts to establish a network, and determined grants authorized by the act and awarded to public health entities. GAO assessed relevant strategic planning documents and interviewed HHS officials and public health stakeholders.

HHS did not develop and deliver to congressional committees a strategic plan that demonstrated the steps to be taken toward the establishment and evaluation of an electronic public health situational awareness network, as required by PAHPA. While multiple offices within HHS have developed related strategies that could contribute to a comprehensive strategic plan for an electronic public health information network to enhance situational awareness, these strategies were not developed for this purpose. Instead, the offices developed the strategies to address their specific goals, objectives, and priorities and to meet requirements of executive and statutory authorities that mandated the development of strategies for nationwide health information exchange, coordinated biosurveillance, and health security. However, HHS has not defined a comprehensive strategic plan that identifies goals, objectives, activities, and priorities and that integrates related strategies to achieve the unified electronic nationwide situational awareness capability required by PAHPA. The department has developed and implemented information technology systems intended to enable electronic information sharing to support early detection of and response to public health emergencies; however, these systems were not developed as part of a comprehensive, coordinated strategic plan as required by PAHPA. Instead, they were developed to support ongoing public health activities over the past decade, such as disease and syndromic surveillance. Without the guidance and direction that would be provided by an overall strategic plan that defines requirements for establishing and evaluating the capabilities of existing and planned information systems, HHS cannot be assured that its resources are being effectively used to develop and implement systems that are able to collect, analyze, and share the information needed to fulfill requirements for an electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability.

Read recommendations, access full report…

Long comment and recommended historical warnings and prescriptions below the line.

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2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation

Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Corporations, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Methods & Process, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Real Time, Strategy, Threats

PART I: The Only Way to Fix the Deficit–Multiply Jobs (William Drayton)

PART II: Nice Ideas But So Is Icing Cover Feces (Robert Steele)

PART III: Create Jobs? As an End In Themselves? To Do What? Why? (Alexander Carpenter)

PART IV: Related Recommended Reading (Robert Steele)

The core take-away (from PART III)

Beyond its inherent merit and explicit substance, William Drayton: The Only Way to Fix the Deficit: Multiply Jobs is a great example of unconscious status-seeking righteousness – well-meaning ineptitude and irrelevance, trapped in the old paradigm of debt-money, growth, and social conditioning. This kind of thinking is exemplary of people who are focused on the superficial “economic crisis,” not going deeper to see that we have a political (and even a social) crisis with, of course, an economic manifestation. This represents the success of the pseudo-science of “economics,” originally created with the intention to get most people to believe that objective “natural” forces are running their lives, not other people, classes, and institutions (Thurmond Arnold, 1937). Good problem-solvers always begin with as much accurate information about the overall problem as possible. It's incompetent – or unconscious self-deception – to assume human nature isn't the core and essence of the problem, and Bill Drayton isn't necessarily incompetent…

Perspective (from PART III Reference):

“By providing the funding and the policy framework to many concerned and dedicated people working within the non-profit sector, the ruling class is able to co-opt leadership from grassroots communities, … and is able to make the funding, accounting, and evaluation components of the work so time consuming and onerous that social justice work is virtually impossible under these conditions” (Paul Kivel, You Call this Democracy, Who Benefits, Who Pays and Who Really Decides, 2004, p. 122 )

Phi Beta Iota: In Advanced Information Operations (IO) terms, we cannot fix the military until we fix government, we cannot fix government until we fix Wall Street and Main Street, we cannot fix the economy until we fix the society, and all of that requires a firm focus on human nature and the relations among humans. We live is a “whole system” and are mis-managing it by being ignorant and delusional about root causes and actual relationships. Until we get the truth on the table, we cannot deal with it. Good news: all it takes is ONE node able to blend intelligence & integrity, that “spike” will proliferate. The bottom line is that DEMAND creates jobs, and EDUCATION creates the demand for the RIGHT jobs. Taking one example, the US Army, it could apply Advanced Information Operations to create a 180 degree maturation of the mind-set of its personnel, and use that to “eat the old” and create the new. The US Army is going to suffer a nose dive in financial resources (as will the other services); the US Army is the ONLY service that must might be capable of “beating the dive” by re-inventing itself from inside out–starting with Advanced IO being about minds, not technology. Similarly, a single multinational could “get a grip” and re-invent itself overnight–the example will proliferate.

Continue reading “Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation”

2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: Robert Smith on Education

04 Education

There are some other things that negatively influence the quality of American public education.

(1) A fair performance evaluation system based on teacher behavior must be implemented. I used to think that such a system must focus upon student outcomes, but, teachers seldom have more than 10% influence over the variance in student outcomes.

(2) Centralized, uniform, bureaucratized instructional directives are often issued by non-educators and they tie the hands of teachers and reduce incentive and creativity.

(3) Resources in the public schools are sparse. The wealthy so often do not wish to share wealth with the public education system that would provide them with educated employees. Everyone from all sectors of our society have an interest in our operating an excellent public educational system. Colleges can't teach if freshmen can't study. Employers need workers who can read, write, calculate, speak … The criminal justice system is used less often by moderately educated persons. People with a higher education are more likely to research health issues, live healthier lives, and have fewer medical ailments (with usually later onset). Our military must have an educated pool of service men and women.

(4) Smart resource allocation is essential. Charles Darwin proposed not the survival of the fittest but rather the survival of the most adaptive. Adaptation to the newest technologies is essential for students to be able to make later contributions to employers or military … All elements of society have a vested interest in quality educational outcomes. All elements must come together with resources, needs / goals for public schools to lead students toward. Perhaps most importantly, the use of the newest technologies in the public schools can alter the entire teaching experience, bringing problems and test questions and personalized instructional techniques and instructional topics to each student so as to maximize his / her education in the most efficient manner. I would guess that this will reduce the cost of education per student over the next decade. The current system is designed, well, somewhat for the convenience of the educators. The children most difficult to “control” (like Thomas Edison would be today) would be provided individualized instruction that is designed to engage each individual student.

(5) Society must embrace education. If the public education system is the thrive and its graduates are to make significant contributions, then the cultures from which students come must be not just education accepting but rather education embracing. How can a child really enjoy and learn if they are malnourished? neglected at home? in need of health care? worry about their mother engaging in dangerous behaviors to satisfy a fix? Why would students who use sound linear short-term reasoning conclude that attendance at school is worthwhile when they can earn twice what a physician earns, at 16, selling drugs, and they don't have to invest an additional 15 years. …

From Robert Smith at Facebook.

2010/12/242010/12/24

Journal: Learning Styles Concepts and Evidence

04 Education, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making

Learning Styles:Concepts and Evidence

Psychological Science in the Public Interest

Abstract

The term “learning styles” refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common—but not the only—hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a “visual learner,” emphasizing visual presentation of information).

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Phi Beta Iota: Advanced Information Operations (IO) will see the blending of Cognitive Science with Collective Intelligence inside the IO Cube. While the World Brain and Global are the final outcome, Advanced IO concepts and doctrine are possible now–they merely require the robust integration of intelligence and integrity in tandem, leading to the identification and pursuit of the right things–and recognize that information is a substitute for time, space, capital, labor, and violence. Sun Tzu meets John Boyd. Arugah.