Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: October 5, 2010 08:57 AM

Dennis Kucinich, Vice President for the Commonwealth–and Some Details

Click on Title to Read at Huffington Post and/or Comment.

Below, as a memory aid, are the previously identified elements and proposed leaders within the Vice Presidency for the Commonwealth, each linked to more information about them as individuals.

Vice President for the Commonwealth: Dennis Kucinich
Agriculture & Water: Jim Hightower
• Water Conservation Authority: William J. Cosgrove (CA)
Health: Howard Dean
• Surgeon General: Steve McIntosh
Interior: Robert Costanza
• Energy: Herman Daly
• Environment: Gordon Durnil
Labor: Jesse Ventura
• Veteran's Affairs: Max Cleland
• No Senior Left Behind: Derek Bok
• Immigration: Pat Buchanan
Transportation & National Design: Joan Claybook
Treasury, Felix Rohatyn
• Internal Revenue: Grover Norquist
• Federal Reserve Termination Authority: Ron Paul

I will be discussing specific policies and their budgetary implications when I address each Cabinet department in turn, after next week. This week and next our focus is on the “big three” allocation of responsibilities across the Vice Presidents, and a “big picture” strategic analytic model for governance.

Let's start with the strategic functions. Stewardship of the Commonwealth demands that every decision affecting the human, natural, and intellectual resources of the Commonwealth be subject to two kinds of thinking: first, does this decision conserve the integrity–the wholeness or completeness–of the Commonwealth, or does it diminish it? Second, in keeping with the traditions of the Native Americans whom we genocided, how will this decision play out Seven Generations out?

In that context, exporting jobs and hollowing out our industrial base while playing financial roulette with pension funds and taking Chernobyl-like risks with industrial catastrophe across America can only be seen as treason, plain and simple. Unfortunately, because we have tolerated a corrupt Congress for decades, a two-party tyranny, one bird with two wings, treason has been legal. That ends now.

Dennis Kucinich needs no introduction. I believe we can trust him to stop all of the forms of fraud and to begin the process of stopping and then reversing the centuries of depredation against America the Beautiful and its generations of impoverished, blue collar, and lower middle-class citizens who have been betrayed by a form of capitalism completely lacking in ethics and integrity.

My general marching orders to Dennis, subject to comments from all of you here within the Huffington Post, are these:
1. End individual income taxes while implementing the Automated Payments/Transaction Tax (APT Tax).
2. Terminate Corporate Personality, implement national corporate charting and “one set of books.”
3. Every American may be a member of a labor union or professional association within four years.
4. End citizen unemployment, study and define a national population policy within four years.
5. Focus especially on getting the 1.6 million homeless children off the streets, healthy, and into school.
6. Implement a domestic policy model that harmonizes spending toward clean water & local energy.
7. Legalize drugs, empty the prisons, employ every released prisoner, and lock down the borders.
8. Create a national design of medium-size self-sufficient cities linked by high-speed rail.
9. End the Federal Reserve and do a complete audit of the Bank of New York within four years.

The Vice President for the Commonwealth will have design oversight of no less than $20 billion a year to be redirected from secret intelligence systems of no substantive value, toward completely regenerating local to global education.

More details will be provided as we discuss individual cabinet departments in the context of the ten high-level threats to humanity (poverty is #1, terrorism barely #9) and the twelve core policies that are now being mis-managed, from Agriculture to Water.

Thursday: Michael Bloomberg, Vice President for Education, Intelligence, & Research–and Some Details About Creating a Smart Nation

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: October 4, 2010 08:41 AM

Continue reading “What's Wrong with America? Let Me List the Books….”

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: October 2, 2010 09:54 AM

#1 Amazon Reviewer for Non-Fiction Says Hello

Click on Title to Read at Huffington Post and/or Comment.

I am going to be a most faithful contributor to the new vertical in Education. I agree with the propositions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively:

A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Unfortunately, we have become a nation of cheats and liars, with our two-party tyranny leading the way. Thankfully, “Open Everything” is here to stay, and Howard Zinn (RIP) had it right when he called the public a power no government can repress.

By way of introduction to my many reviews that provide the context for my deliberative focus on education, below are two booklists created in support of my most recent book proposing the creation, immediately, of a World Brain and Global Game. The first is a negative list, all the books that document all the negatives that we have allowed to proliferate over the past fifty years. The second is a positive list, and I must salute Tom Atlee, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and many others who have educated me this past decade on wisdom among us all.

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Now with that as an introduction, here are my two “opening shots” in what is sure to be one of the most influential and useful educational sites on the Internet.

Child-Driven Education (Sugata Mitra at TED)

The World Is Open-How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education (Review)

If you want to see all of my reviews to date of education books, below are the two links.

Education (General)

Education (Universities)

All reviews lead back to the Amazon Page, and at the bottom, to my often-buried review should you wish to vote or comment — I respond to all comments at Amazon on a daily basis, and of course here at The Huffington Post as well.

UPDATED 29 May 2011 to add top-level link:

Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: September 30, 2010 09:41 AM

Virtual President Announces Coalition Cabinet

Click on Title to Read at Huffington Post and/or Comment.

My fellow Americans, I am honored to present to you my thoughts on restructuring and down-sizing the federal government along with a proposed Coalition Cabinet. Many of these names, while stellar, are conventional. I am asking each of you to put forward any suggestions for improving how we govern ourselves. I am strongly inclined to embrace your suggestions by joining your recommended candidates with these candidates to achieve a collective balance at every level of the government, one focused on restoring American the Beautiful.

As I indicated in my first post on 28 September 2010, I believe we must have three Vice-Presidents, one for the Commonwealth who shall be the Principal Vice-President; a second for Education, Intelligence, & Research; and a third for Global Engagement (changed from National Security to break the back of the military-industrial complex and the two ubber Services with no shame).

I am proposing for your public deliberation and consent, some consolidations as shown below–indented organizations are subordinate to, and will be represented on the Cabinet by, the principal organization. I have moved the Department of Commerce to serve under the Vice President for Global Engagement.

Vice President for the Commonwealth: Dennis Kucinich
Agriculture & Water: Jim Hightower
• Water Conservation Authority: William J. Cosgrove (CA)
Health: Howard Dean
• Surgeon General: Steve McIntosh
Interior: Robert Costanza
• Energy: Herman Daly
• Environment: Gordon Durnil
Labor: Jesse Ventura
• Veteran's Affairs: Max Cleland
• No Senior Left Behind: Derek Bok
Transportation & National Design: Joan Claybook
Treasury, Felix Rohatyn
• Internal Revenue: Grover Norquist
• Federal Reserve Termination Authority: Ron Paul

Vice President for Education, Intelligence, and Research: Michael Bloomberg
Chaplain: Jim Wallis
Culture: Jello Biafra
Education: John Taylor Gatto
National Intelligence: Brent Scowcroft
• Open Source Agency: Carol Dumaine
National Research: Vint Cerf
Office of Management and Budget: Joseph Eugene Stiglitz
Patent Office: Lawrence Lessig
Strategy Center: David Abshire
Global Truth & Reconciliation Centre: Lee Kuan Yew (SG), Nelson Mandela (ZA), & Fidel Castro (CU)

Vice President for Global Engagement: Newt Gingrich
Defense: Tony Zinni
Justice: Ralph Nader
• Homeland Security: Rudi Guliani
• Computational Mathematics Authority: Stephen Wolfram (UK)
State: Gary Hart
• Ambassador to Israel: Henry Seigman
• Ambassador to the United Nations: Carol Mosley Braun
Commerce: Clyde Prestowitz
• Trade Representative: Alfred Eckes

Presidential Ambassadors & Assistants to the President (15): Average American (alter ego to the President), Tom Atlee (Collective Intelligence), John Bogle (CEO for Whole Earth Capitalism), Alex Cockburn (Inspector General of the Republic), Barbara Marx Hubbard (Collective Culture of Consciousness), David Gergen (Media Outreach), William Greider (Public Outreach), Peggy Holman (Public Outreach), Cynthia McKinney (Public Outreach), Francis Moore Lappe (Collective Culture of Consciousness), Gary Nolan (Public Outreach), Sarah Palin (Public Outreach), Jim Rough (Wisdom Councils Everywhere), Pete Schoomaker (Put the Special back into Special Forces), Al Sharpton (alter ego to the President).

Supreme Court, 1st Available Position: Ron Paul

Here's my bottom line for our future: We the People are going to restore the Republic, re-instate the Constitution, balance the budget, and create a prosperous world at peace in which every citizen has a job with dignity and a sufficiency of income to raise a family. My first priority, if you do not spontaneously demand this before 2012, will be achieve Electoral Reform and then to create a Smart Nation.

Next Tuesday: Nurturing the Commonwealth

Next Thursday: Creating a Smart Nation

Robert David Steele

Recovering spy, serial pioneer for open and public intelligence

Posted: September 28, 2010 10:25 AM

It's Official — Steele Won Virtual Presidency

Click on Title to Read at Huffington Post and/or Comment.

I held a bi-partisan vote today, with me representing the Democratic Party while I represented the Republican Party. Strict ballot access controls ensured a unanimous outcome — the new Virtual President of the United States of America is Robert David Steele, or for Latinos, Roberto David de Steele y Vivas.

Over the next 45 days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will announce one critical policy decision, always in the context of a balanced budget and always with the public interest in mind — this is not going to be pretty, but 45 days from today, every American will be able to compare my virtual track record with the actual track record of those seeking re-election, or in the case of a tiny handful that overcame enormous obstacles, those seeking election for the first time.

Here is my first decision: America needs three Vice-Presidents, not one; a Vice President for the Commonwealth, who should be the Principal Vice President; a Vice President for Education, Intelligence, and Research; and a Vice President for National Security. I also reject the “winner take all” concept for naming my Cabinet, and will appoint a Coalition Cabinet in my next posting. When I run for actual election in 2012, all three Vice Presidents and all Cabinet members will be named 60 days prior to the election, and I will challenge my opponents to not only do the same, but to engage in cabinet level debates across the land, restoring the League of Women Voters as the honest broker of these debates. 30 days prior to Election Day, I will publish a balanced budget online, and I and my Cabinet will personally engage in a National Deliberative Dialog online, to ensure that before I am elected, my proposed balanced budget has the general approval of the entire voting public.

Education and restoration of the Republic will be my primary focus. If I fail, I will support Alaska, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and Vermont in their growing demand for secession from the United States of America. The government we have today is out of control and out of touch; its time we flush the toilet we call the two-party tyranny.

Thursday: Virtual Sunshine Cabinet Named