Category: Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices

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Link TV Educating Americans About Real World

04 Education, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Peace Intelligence, Whole Earth Review
John Steiner

Dear Friends far and wide:

Link TV in San Francisco is a precious resource for the progressive/transpartisan communities, and we¹re asking you to join us in making a gift to Link.

In December 1999, our good friend and colleague, Kim Spencer,
http://www.linktv.org/whoweare/staff launched Link TV, the first nationwide television network dedicated to providing Americans with global perspectives on news, events and culture. In the wake of media consolidation. Americans have little access to diverse perspectives on critical global issues, and Link challenges this trend.  Today, Link is now broadcast into 35 million homes across the US (largely through DISH, DIRECT TV and with some cable outlets), has 6.7 million regular viewers (many across the political and cultural divides), and provides coverage not found anywhere else in the US.

Link is the only US provider of Al Jazeera English, broadcasts Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! daily, and has won a Peabody Award for its Middle East news program, Mosaic.

Continue reading “Link TV Educating Americans About Real World”

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Worth a Look: Digital (Interactive) Citizens Project

Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Technologies
John Steiner

The Digital Citizen Project builds upon the new digital capabilities of television broadcasting and the Internet’s advances in social engagement, to bring an unprecedented degree of citizen participation to news programming for the 2012 election period. The project is premised on the belief that, when offered the chance to appear in media as “informed citizens,” a large number of people will rise to the challenge.

How it Works: Digital Citizen 2012 is a cross-platform and converged media series that seamlessly connects people using social and mobile applications, to television programming of the 2012 campaign. Using well-established online engagement tools, public participants contribute video, audio, text and still images of themselves to the station’s website, stating their opinions and posing questions. Initially, the online community will vet contributions. Producers will join in, to assure the inclusion of representative groups in this process and to track contributors whose posts are popular among the community. Utilizing the digital capabilities of modern studio production equipment, a significant number of the pre-recorded contributor questions and comments will appear on the live programs.

A much smaller number of contributors, whose articulate positions prove popular with the community, will be offered the opportunity to appear live via webcam on the TV program. These participants will be required to take part in a carefully designed online facilitation process that bolsters their arguments with facts, and introduces them to others with different opinions. These “informed citizens” will then be able to speak directly with journalists, experts and candidates during the programs.

Learn more….

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TED: John Perry Barlow on Collective Consciousness

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Officers Call, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, TED Videos
John Perry Barlow

TEDxMarin – John Perry Barlow – The Right to Know

16:56

Phi Beta Iota: This is classic Barlow, totally new fresh look, a moving and deeply engaging personal monologue on where we are, where we are going.

“Thought is not a noun to be owned, it is a verb, an action.”

“Copyright is the wrong model for monetizing thinking.”

See Also:

Electronic Frontier Foundation

1992 Barlow (US) Information Wants to Be Free

Review: The Virtual Community–Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier

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Louis D. Brandeis on Banks Against the People

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, IO Sense-Making, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Who, Me?

In 1912, Woodrow Wilson campaigned for President using many Progressive ideas about strengthening the economy: banking reform, tariff reduction and the elimination of monopolies and trusts. The consolidation of these ideas became known as the New Freedom.

After Wilson's election, Louis Brandeis (who was responsible for many of Wilson's ideas in the first place) wrote a series of articles for Harper's Weekly which outlined why the New Freedom was necessary and how best to implement it. In 1914, the articles were collected in book form and published under the title Other People's Money–and How the Bankers Use It.

Brandeis' central thesis was that the large banking houses were colluding with businessmen to create trusts in America's major industries. Brandeis felt that not only did trusts stifle competition, but also they became so large that they became unable to operate efficiently.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Brandeis backed up his arguments with facts–copious facts gleaned from his battles against J. P. Morgan and Charles Mellen in the New Haven Railroad merger battle and from the Pujo Committee–a House committee report that investigated the abuses of the “Money Trust.”

Wilson was able to push through a number of laws regarding the regulation of business and trusts, but in many ways, due to mergers and stock manipulation, conditions in the business world today remain the same. Many of the details in Other People's Money may be dated, but its central ideas remain relevant–so much so that is still in print almost 90 years after it was first published.  The chapters here are free online.

Chapter I: Our Financial Oligarchy

Chapter II: How The Combiners Combine

Chapter III: Interlocking Directorates

Chapter IV: Serve One Master Only!

Chapter V: What Publicity Can Do

Chapter VI: Where The Banker Is Superfluous

Chapter VII: Big Men And Little Business

Chapter VIII: A Curse Of Bigness

Chapter IX: The Failure Of Banker-Management

Chapter X: The Inefficiency Of The Oligarchy

Tip of the Hat to the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.

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<1% of World Population Controls 39% of All Wealth

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Peace Intelligence
Click on Image to Enlarge

Millionaires Control 39% of the World’s Wealth

By Robert Frank

Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2011

Last year was another good year for millionaires – though their pace of growth is slowing.

According to a new report by Boston Consulting Group out today, the number of millionaire households in the world grew by 12.2% in 2010, to 12.5 million. (BCG defines millionaires as those with $1 million or more in investible assets, excluding homes, luxury goods and ownership in one’s own company).

The U.S. continues to lead the world in millionaires, with 5.2 million millionaire households, followed by Japan with 1.5 million millionaire households, China with 1.1 million and the U.K. with 570,000. Singapore leads the world in “millionaire density,” or the percentage of millionaires, with 15.5% of its population now millionaire households.

The most important trend, however, is the global wealth distribution. According to the report, the world’s millionaires represent 0.9% of the world’s population but control 39% of the world’s wealth, up from 37% in 2009. Their wealth now totals $47.4 trillion in investible wealth, up from $41.8 trillion in 2009.

Read rest of article….

Phi Beta Iota: The single most consistent precondition for revolution across centuries has been the over-concentration of wealth.  We're there.  Now all we need is a few precipitants.

See Also:

Continue reading “<1% of World Population Controls 39% of All Wealth”

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USA: Thirteen Big Lies — Needed Counter-Narrative

07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Jock Gill

Here are a few of the BIG lies used to support the status quo.  What we need, rather urgently, is a counter-narrative

LIE 1. The earth is an open system with infinite supplies and sinks;

POSSIBLE TRUTH:  Earth is a closed system, changes that used to take 10,000 years now take three, humanity is “peaking” the entire system.

LIE 2. Everything must be monetized;

POSSIBLE TRUTH:  Money is an exchange unit and an information unit; in the absence of holistic analytics and “true cost” transparency, mony is actually a toxic means of concentrating wealth and depriving communities of their own resources (e.g. land).

LIE 3. The extreme unregulated free market is the only option for a modern economy;

POSSIBLE TRUTH:  Information asymmetries and “rule by secrecy” have been clearly documented–the free market is neither free nor fair.  A modern economy needs to be transparent, resilient, and hence rooted in the local.

Continue reading “USA: Thirteen Big Lies — Needed Counter-Narrative”