ROBERT STEELE: As I watch DNI Dan Coats embarrass himself, I cannot help but be reminded of the only decent high-level threat study ever done, by a panel including LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret), the last serious National Security Advisor in modern US history. The DNI is either being lied to or is actively misleading Congress. See in passing Soft Coup and False Flag Attacks. I am dismayed by the failure of the DNI to provide a national threat report that is holistic and inclusive of true cost economics.
10 High-Level Threats to Humanity
Or, everything no one ever told DNI Dan Coats that he was incapable of thinking of by himself.
by Greg Palast for Truthout/Buzzflash
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tonight, my dog Pluto and I watched the PBS ‘Frontline' investigation of BP, “The Spill.”
PBS has uncovered a real shocker: BP neglected safety!
Well, no shit, Sherlock!
Pluto rolled over on the rug and looked at me as if to say, Don't we already know this?
Then PBS told us – get ready – that BP has neglected warnings about oil safety for years!
That's true. But so has PBS. The Petroleum Broadcast System has turned a blind eye to BP perfidy for decades.
If the broadcast had come six months before the Gulf blow-out, after the 2005 BP Refinery explosion in Texas, after the 2006 Alaska pipeline disaster, after the years of government fines that flashed DANGER-DANGER, I would say, “Damn, that Frontline sure is courageous.” But six months after the blow-out, PBS has shown us it only has the courage to shoot the wounded.
Venezuela- US: For the record. The Caracas government seized two factories owned by U.S.-based glass maker Owens Illinois, because it caused “environmental damage and exploited workers,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on 25 October. Today Venezuelan soldiers took possession of the factories.
Venezuela-Middle East: President Chavez said his government and Libya are creating a $1 billion joint investment fund to pay for projects the two countries will pursue together, according to a report by The Associated Press. Chavez also announced a $100 million joint fund with Syria, which will be used on projects such as aid in the construction of an oil refinery and to establish an olive oil processing plant.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: Chavez invariably goes out of his way to make questionable deals with countries that tend to have strained relations with the US. None of his new allies are in a position to help Venezuela in the event of trouble, which calls into question the wisdom of the investments, the utility of the associations and the soundness of Chavez' judgment.
Phi Beta Iota: We beg to differ with our esteemed colleague. The US is so over-extended in its elective wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as to call into question its ability to be effective anywhere else, including against Somali pirates. Furthermore, the passing of time and the accumulation of public knowledge has a “truth” effect that may not lead to reconciliation but will lead to more and more expropriation of ill-gotten gains by predatory capitalists who in the past were able to call in the US Marines to enforce unethical, illegal, and unjust seizures of property. Just as Australia is now getting serious about Native Title, so also is the rest of the Southern Hemisphere going to get serious about expropriating back into indigenous possession those lands acquired through illicit or unethical means.
The next President, and the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI), are going to have to lead a 180 degree change in how the US “does” intelligence. Instead of producing 4% “at best,” the DNI is going to have to lead the integration of education, intelligence, and research so as to meet 96% “at worst” of the needs of the Nation in both restoring domestic prosperity and in achieving truth & reconciliation abroad. Absent such a redirection, the US will not survive in its present form to 2025…in our always humble opinion. This will require leaders with integrity who place the public interest foremost.
The author of attached article in the Guardian, George Monbiot is a pious Global Warming enthusiast. He probably despises the Koch brothers because they are funding anti-global warming efforts. But setting the writer's biases aside, as well as his somewhat condescending tone, his report (which is based primarily on the New Yorker’s brilliant expose of the Koch brothers and the new documentary “(Astro)Turf Wars,”) is an excellent summary of how behind-the-scene manipulators are funding the Tea Party movement and are shaping and energizing the Orientation of Tea Party’s collective OODA loop — i.e., the lens thru which its members Observe the world, interpret their all-to-real problems, provides focus to their anger, and thereby shapes the Decisions guiding their Actions.
The strategic leverage gained by shaping a group's Orientation ought be self-evident at this point: it unleashes and focuses the free-wheeling energy of the individuals to enthusiastically work together for the well being of others without requiring the coercive and ultimately revealing and self-defeating effects of top-down control.
The following quote (near end of article) provides an excellent statement of the strategic aim guiding those shaping efforts.
“Most of these bodies call themselves “free-market thinktanks”, but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflatecrony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy that informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt.”
On the other hand, any strategy grounded in deception must be wrapped in a protective cloak of ambiguity, because a deception builds into the OODA loops of the ‘deceived' the seeds of a crucial vulnerability: Once the ambiguity is penetrated, and the scam is exposed and its effects appreciated, the Orientation of the ‘deceived' will flip and their rage will be energized and focused on the deceivers by the desire for vengeance. Which is why the passive or active connivance of the mainstream media in the US (most of which is owned by crony capitalists) in supporting the manipulation is central to keeping the game going.
The Tea Party movement: deluded and inspired by billionaires
By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business
The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.
A “must read” piece of solid British analysis….
Phi Beta Iota: A new set of unwitting fools–no offense intended, but that's the story….those elected under the Tea Party banner will caucus with the Republicans, and that is the truth-teller.
Mexico: For the record. Suspected members of the Sinaloa drug trafficking cartel warned that they would kill 135 people after security forces seized 134 tons of marijuana last week in Tijuana, Baja California state, Milenio reported today, 25 October. The warning was made over a police radio frequency late on 24 October reportedly minutes after gunmen killed 13 patients at a drug rehabilitation center in Tijuana.
Phi Beta Iota: This kind of indiscriminate mass murder in retaliation for what are relatively minor interdictions suggests that on the one hand, both the US and Mexican government have not only lost all control of the territory for which they are responsible for providing good order and public safety and security; but also that neither government has an effective intelligence capability to guide operations in detail. We are reminded of how long it took to hunt down one man in Colombia, Pablo Escobar. A MAJOR obstacle is the recalcitrance of the US secret intelligence community with $75 billion or more being applied to produce “at best” 4% of what is needed, to reinvent itself and engage in M4IS2: multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making. The El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) is a massive failure precisely because it embodies all of the handicaps of the past and none of the advantages of the present.
Livestock today consume 5 times as much grain as the entire American population, the average meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to fork, and seven football fields' worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.
But it doesn't have to be all doom-and-gloom. We as consumers still have options, which, over time, can change our economy. It's this idea that drives INFORM — the educational and advocacy nonprofit that raises environmental consciousness for the general public through visual media. Its “Secret Life” film series, seen by over 2 million viewers in 80 countries, examines the lifecycle environmental impact of everyday objects we all consume.
Chris Elam
