Although making no reference to Buckminster Fuller and Medard Gabel that we could find, the International Futures Forum offers a useful series of pages on elements of the World Game that they work with. Here we publish the Twelve Factors and the underlying elements for each.
Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget
03 Economy, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Military
Dear friends,
The three articles below describe major approaches to addressing the deficit — for health care, taxes and the military — that would have a greater impact on America's budget woes than ANYTHING being currently negotiated by Congress and the Obama Administration. Even better, these three things would, if implemented, actually improve the quality of life in the U.S., instead of degrading it, as so many of the current proposals would do. They give a taste of some excellent thinking emerging from the fringes of this “budget crisis” debate.
[After I wrote this I was alerted to another very interesting “People's Budget” recently released with little coverage in the mainstream media, which I recommend to those interested in alternatives.]
When I imagine a Citizens Jury, a Citizens Assembly, or any other randomly selected body of citizens convened to deliberate about the “budget crisis”, this is the kind of information I believe they should be exposed to. We don't need to undermine public health to create affordable health care. We don't need to undermine the wealth of the nation to have a reasonable tax system. We don't need to endanger American security to have a strong, affordable military.
We just need to think a bit outside of the boxes that most mainstream media, pundits, politicians and partisan activists (intentionally) put our minds in, and ask ourselves “What's the REAL problem here — and what would ACTUALLY solve it?”
How to Save a Trillion Dollars
Taxes on the Wealthy: New Top Brackets Needed for the Have Mores
Want to improve US national security? Cut the defense budget.
Continue reading “Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget”
USA Has Become Deaf, Dumb, and Blind
04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, Advanced Cyber/IO, Budgets & Funding, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Waste (materials, food, etc)Published on Monday, April 11, 2011 by TruthDig.com
Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System
by Chris Hedges
Note: Truthdig server overwhelmed. This is the Common Dreams reprint.
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Finish reading at CommonDreams
Michael Bloomberg, Vice President for Education, Intelligence, & Research — Creating a Smart Nation
2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated
2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Restrospective
1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information
1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (An Alternative Paradigm)
Complete Safety Copy Below the Line
US Intelligence: Militarized to Lowest Common Denominator
07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Government, Intelligence (government), IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call
Phi Beta Iota: Posted with permission. We strongly recommend the Intelligence Online offerings. We have received a number of commentaries around this topic, and they boil down to the situation being much, much worse than depicted here:
1. Budget weenies without substantive experience running entire agencies (e.g. NRO)
2. Nose-dive to the lowest common denominator, completely destroying regional and country expertise and having no linguistic capabilities or grasp of history and culture (CIA, DIA)
3. Completely out of control procurement, rotten requirements definition, no full life-cycle planning (e.g. buy collection, do not buy processing), and generally disconnected from reality (NSA/Cyber-Command)
4. We are reminded that there are 1,200 distinct “organizations” wasting money and going through the motions on counter-terrorism–meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security gropes little girls, confiscates aftershave, and is generally on the underside of institutionalized tyrannical idiocy.
New Army Chief of Staff: Out of Touch? NEW: Blistering Bullshit Flag Waved from Afghanistan
04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Standards, Tools
For information.
From Afghanistan for ACOS: I have not seen so much BS in a while. The 10th Mountain deployed to Afghanistan without the proper equipment to operate in the mountains. They lacked adequate cold weather gear and our lift capability does not fly well here either. With the exception of 40 year old Chinooks, most can't climb over the lofty peaks that permeate this country.
I attended a farewell for a friend of mine, there were 33 people there, 11 of them in the rank of 06, two in the rank of 08. What these guys did everyday is beyond me, but little work gets done in the palace of King David I can assure you. There are Green Berets out in villages that depend on their families to help them with the Hearts and Minds that Petraeus so often says he is trying to win, but doesn't support. That type of warfare does little to increase the coffers of the MICC….
Chuck Spinney–we read all your stuff and his–has it right: this guy lives in a palace, Versailles on the Potomac, and is totally out of touch with reality.
Phi Beta Iota: It is not at all clear that the new Army Chief of Staff (ACOS) understands that the standard issue weapon is worthless beyond 300 meters, or that his force in combat (4% of the total force) takes 80% of the casualties while receiving 1% of the total military budget. We know what our troops are fighting for–what is this guy fighting for on behalf of his troops?
Secrecy News: CRS Reports on Debt Limit–Congress Does Not Want CRS Reports Made Public
03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, GovernmentTHE DEBT LIMIT: HISTORY AND RECENT INCREASES
A statutory limit on total federal debt has been in place since 1917. In the past decade, Congress has voted to raise the debt limit ten times and it will now have to do so once again.
The history of the debt limit and its current implications were discussed in a recently updated report from the Congressional Research Service. See “The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases” (pdf), March 7, 2011. And see, relatedly, “Reaching the Debt Limit: Background and Potential Effects on Government Operations,” February 11, 2011.
$500 Billion in Cuts is Minimal Mandatory….
03 Economy, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency
12 April 2011
If the deficit and debt are real problems that can only be addressed by cutting government spending as the Republicans claim than the budget the Republicans agreed to is a joke. It shows that the Republicans either don't believe their own rhetoric about the need to drastically curtail government spending or that they are just politicians and not statesmen. They might say the “right” thing to the tea party movement but in practice they wont lead us out of the mess that they caused in the first place starting under Bush and continuing under Obama.
If the Republicans were serious about cutting the deficit and the debt, they would do at least three things. First, they would follow the lead of then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who on Sept. 10, 2001 held a press conference at which he called for a war against wasteful Pentagon spending. He said that there was $2.3 trillion dollars unaccounted for in the Department of Defense. So what the Republicans should do is call for a full and transparent audit of the Pentagon.
The second thing they should do is support Sen. Rand Paul's moderate $500 billion in cuts as a starting point for the discussion. The third thing the Republicans should do is take a serious look at the costs of having 1,200 government organizations working on counter-terrorism. Between weeding out waste at the Pentagon, rethinking our counter-terrorism organizational strategy and Sen. Paul's cuts, the Republicans would at least be taken seriously as fiscal conservatives.
Continue reading “$500 Billion in Cuts is Minimal Mandatory….”
