Category: Blog Wisdom

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Bin Laden Show 00: Taliban Offer Pre-9/11 and Post-9/11, US Rejection

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Government, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

Interview with Mullah Omar, Arnaud de Borchgrave (June 2001)  – Very important and rare interview with Mullah Omar the head of the Taliban almost three months before 9-11 on the front page of the Washington Times (June 18).  Omar suggested Osama bin Ladin was a problem he wanted to resolve.  Bush Administration showed no interest in pursuing this lead.  The information in de Borchgrave’s 2001 report is consistent with that in an important report issued in February 2011 by theCenter on International Cooperation at New York University, which is summarized by Gareth Porter in Counterpunch here.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

Phi Beta Iota:  There are other reports of the Taliban approaching the US Department of State (including one approach to a CIA officer under cover).  After 9/11 the Taliban resurfaced these offers, but asking only that Bin Laden receive a public trial.  In every instance before and after 9/11 the US refused to consider the Taliban offers to turn over Bin Laden.  One can only surmise that between them the CIA and the White House were quite content with the role Bin Laden was playing in AF, and that removing him would actually interfere with US plans for which Bin Laden was, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a “patsy” in the not-so-great game.

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Patrick Meier: Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs – Blog Twitter Hybrid Teach-Consult Dissertation Focus

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Officers Call
Patrick Meier

Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs

Next week I will be attending my official graduation from The Fletcher School to receive my PhD diploma. It is—in a word—surreal. I've been working on my PhD for almost as long as I've known my good friend and colleague Chris Albon, which is to say, a long time. Chris is also a newly minted political science PhD and recently joined the FrontlineSMS team as the director of their Governance Project. Needless to say, our paths have crossed on many occasions over the years and we've had many long conversations about the scholar-practitioner path that we've taken. With graduation just a few days away, we thought we'd write-up this joint post to share our pearls of wisdom with future PhDs.

First: blog, blog, blog! The blog is the new CV. If you don't exist dynamically online, then you're not indexable on the web. And if you're not indexable, then you're not searchable or discoverable. You don't exist! Blog-ergo-sum, simple as that. Chris and I have been blogging for years and this has enabled us to further our knowledge and credibility, not to mention our of network of contacts. The blog allows you to build your own independent brand, not your advisor’s and not your program’s. This is critical. We've received consulting gigs and keynote invitations based on blog posts that we've published over the years. Do not underestimate the power of blogging for your professional (and yes, academic) career. In many ways, blogging is about getting credit for your ideas and to signal to others what you know and what your interests are.

Second: get on Twitter! Malcolm Gladwell is wrong: social media can build strong-tie bonds. Heck, social media is how I originally met Chris. If the blog is the new CV, then consider your Twitter account the new business card. Use Twitter to meet everyone, everywhere. Let people know you'll be in London for a conference and don't underestimate the synergies and serendipity that is the twittersphere. Chris currently follows around 1,200 people on Twitter, and he estimates that over the years he has met around half of them in person. That is a lot of contacts and, frankly, potential employers. Moreover, like blogging, tweeting enables you to connect to others and stay abreast of interesting new developments. Once upon a time, people used to email you interesting articles, conferences, etc. I personally got on Twitter several years ago when I realized that said emails were no longer making it to my inbox. This information was now being shared via Twitter instead. Like the blog, Twitter allows you to create and manage your own personal brand.

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs – Blog Twitter Hybrid Teach-Consult Dissertation Focus”

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Tom Atlee: Wholesome Capitalism

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics
Tom Atlee

Wholesome capitalism?

What would wholesome capitalism look like?

“Wholesome” means healthy, in the sense of something that promotes physical and moral well-being. Wholesome capitalism would take into account the wholeness of people and the social and natural world we live in, and it would enhance that wholeness.

Some people think capitalism already does this. They note how good it has been at generating wealth. The word wealth, meaning abundance, derives from roots meaning well-being and wholeness. Many of capitalism's advocates feel it should be freed from constraints so it can generate more wealth.

Others note that capitalism – while generating wealth for some – many or few, depending on its form in a particular time and place – nevertheless generates much suffering and destruction in the process. It reduces everything to money and maximizes financial return even if it has to degrade and destroy human and natural life to do it. Many of capitalism's critics feel it should be undermined or overthrown.

Still others note both the blessings and problems with capitalism. They think we can have the wealth without so much suffering and destruction. Most of these people promote freeing capitalism's creativity and productivity while restraining its rapaciousness in various ways – using everything from laws, regulations and taxes to moral suasion and consumer-shareholder activism.

In this article I advocate all three positions – odd as that may sound – but only after reframing “capital” and “wealth” to better reflect wholeness.

THE PRIMARY DYNAMIC OF CAPITALISM

The special gift of capitalism is its ability to create MORE – more products and services, more self-organized economic activity, more wealth. In systems science, this tendency to create more-ness is called a positive or reinforcing feedback dynamic.

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Wholesome Capitalism”

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John Robb: Techcrunch Interview on Resilient Communities (Be Happy)

Articles & Chapters, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Future-Oriented, Methods & Process, Policies, Resilience
John Robb

Techcrunch Interview

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 10:15 AM PDT

I did an interview the Jon Evans at Techcrunch (the social technology hub) earlier this week.  Here it is.

I'm spending most of my time writing and editing the Resilient Communities letter (it's free to subscribe).

As I said in the interview, the reason I started the letter was because I strongly believe that the most successful, happiest people on the planet in twenty years will be living in resilient communities.

Lots of good stuff in the RC letter —  from DiY sewage systems to how to power an entire neighborhood with solar energy.

Phi Beta Iota:  Creating resilient communities from the bottom up is what the federal government should be but is not facilitating.  We're on our own.

See Also:

Paul and Percival Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (Columbia University Press, 1990)

Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale (New Catalyst Books, 2007)

E. F. Schumaker, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Hartley and Marks Publishers, 2000)

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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. 

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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”

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Theophillis Goodyear: Reflections on Anarchy versus Open Source

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence
Theophillis Goodyear

The term anarchy is antithetical to Open Source, because anarchy, by strict definition at least, sees all forms of state organization as structures that need to be eliminated. Open Source, on the other hand, is about spreading control of these systems of organization to the general population, rather than leaving them concentrated in the hands of the few at the top. It's not about eliminating systems of organization. That can have disastrous and unforeseeable social consequences.

And although many anarchists may agree with this basic component of Open Source systems, the term anarchy is a relic that needs to be discarded. It can only confuse things and hold back the Open Source movement from reaching it's ultimate potential. People have been talking about the information age for decades. But the true information age hasn't even arrived yet. It will arrive when it has become commonplace for humans to link their brains through computer systems and thereby increase human intelligence exponentially. The true age of information means intelligence squared.
Prematurely killing “the state” could kill the very systems of organization required to make Open Source a reality. And once open source becomes a reality, what anarchists currently call “the state,” as we know it, will no longer exist anyway. Anarchists need to catch up with the times and stop getting so hung up on worn out terminologies and ideologies. Often the greatest obstacles to human progress are our antiquated intellectual models and habitual mindsets. Just as the founding fathers of America could never have envisioned the complexities and potentials of contemporary society, neither could the original anarchists. Strict constitutionalists often use the ideas of the founding fathers to block reasonable progress. At times it looks to like anarchists are doing the same thing. They need to let go of the past and start looking toward the future.