The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
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
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.
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.
Pogo reigns supreme…..
Pentagon Will Consider Cyberattacks Acts of War
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times, May 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon, trying to create a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks on the United States, plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may result in a military response.
Phi Beta Iota: These people literally have no clue and are simply striving for budget share before Pentagon right-sizing gets underway. We absolutely guarantee that what the Pentagon and the US Intelligence Community do to their own employees every day (including forbidding thumb drives now) qualifies as a crime against humanity as well as an act of war. The USG is its own worst enemy in every possible sense.
See Also:
2011 Cyber-Command or IO 21 + IO Roots
Bob Gates, Chief Maintenance Clerk, Talks Crap — and the Wall Street Journal Goes Along…
Defense and the Deficit–Busting the Defense Bubble, Ending Defense Entitlement
Reference: The Pentagon Labyrinth
Review (Guest): The Pentagon Labyrinth
Review: Grand Theft Pentagon–Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror
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”
First, the lawyer. Thomas E. Mellon Jr. from Doylestown, PA. He is representing 17 families from Bucks Couny in a Class Action Suit against Iran, al-Qaida and other supporters of Sept. 11 attack. He is an intimate of the US Department of Justice that is on record as claiming that it has the right to lie to the judiciary. We smell a lie pie.
Second, the plaintiff. Fiona Havlish. She was also the lead in the 2002 filing against Bin Laden et al, but in that case the current lawyer was second on a long list of firms that participated. She was a prime force behind a class action lawsuit seeking $100 billion in compensation. Her husband died in the South Tower, not in Pennsylvania. The timing of this, post Bin Laden Show, is suspect.
Third, the defectors. Three of them A proper investigation will surely find that they have been in close consultation with the Iranian Liberation nut-jobs that are being encouraged by State, DoD, and CIA to play with public perceptions. There is no way these three can withstand scrutiny, and we hope that Iran chooses to confront these almost certain lies in some public manner. Remember Chalabi & CURVEBALL?
Continue reading “Iran Played “Pivotal Role” in 9/11? Craven Idiocy”
I think the best description of Robert Gates is that he is a very smart bureaucrat who exemplifies the concept of go along to get along. He demonstrated this admirably in his farewell ‘warning’ as reported in the Wall Street Journal. This was a “guns or butter” speech designed to reassure the defense industrial complex that the safety of the U.S. will depend on the continued acquisition of pointless complex and expensive weapons systems.
Rather interestingly in this speech Gates ignored two pieces of information that might have caused him to reconsider his advocacy of super weapons systems.
Continue reading “Robert Gates: A Brilliant Career — As a Courtier”
America can be a superpower or a welfare state, but not both.
Phi Beta Iota Sidenote: BOTH of the above “choices” are corruption incarnate. The correct choice was articulated by Thomas Jefferson: “A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.”
EXTRACT:
In a series of farewell speeches, Mr. Gates has warned against cuts to weapon programs and troop levels that would make America vulnerable in “a complex and unpredictable security environment,” as he said Sunday at Notre Dame. On Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Gates noted that the U.S. went on “a procurement holiday” in the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration decided to cash in the Cold War peace dividend. The past decade showed that history (and war) didn't end in 1989.
Robert Steele Sends. This is personal. In1995, Gates was one of four Americans invited to address the French national conference on “Waging War and Peace in the 21st Century.” He followed me on the schedule, and on hearing my presentation, sashayed up to the stage, sniffed dismissively, and said “I'm not even going to touch that.” As we now know, I nailed it in 1989 for General Al Gray, in 1992 for the Whole Earth Review, again in 1995 for all in France (and separately in USA for COSPO under Joe Markowitz and for US Government as a Whole), and again in 2000 for NATO. And onward to the UN and various multinational audiences who lack a single nation ready to play a leadership role in the M4IS2 arena. Robert Gates was arrogant then, he is ignorant now….and he does “do maintenance,” that is all he has done as a placeholder at Defense. Gate's farewell comments are crap, pure and simple. He has overseen the waste of America's blood, treasure, and spirit with abject amorality that Dick Cheney would be proud of. He has failed to demand what Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) called for–a strategy, a force structure (the four forces after next) suited to the 21st Century, and an acquisition system with integrity.
