In this first provocative essay, the historian Norman Pollack* explains why he thinks fascism with a thuggish face might be preferable to the silky corporatism of the neo-liberal deep state** An interesting review/critique of Pollack most well-known book can be found here. ** the “deep state” is a term coined by the Turks and used by the Egyptians to describe their own versions of Maryuma's “close-embrace” system, the American version of Professor Pollack summarizes below.
Who hasn't gotten excited about a new Internet service, only to discover that it falls short on free software values?
The Web is full of services for posting, sharing and commenting on media, but most of them require you to run nonfree software or share your data with third parties on their terms. It seems like these problems are just getting worse, with more and more of our media and personal information hoarded in the hard drives of a few giant corporations, and previous uses of nonfree Flash being replaced with nonfree JavaScript. Determined to find a better way, FSF member Chris Webber started the GNU MediaGoblin project. He's leading a community team to write a next-generation social web system where users will share their experiences through photos, videos and audio, all without running proprietary software or centralizing personal data in the hands of a corporation.
Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Yves Daccord explains how war has shaped the image of our heroes but warns of the risks as modern technology makes warfare anonymous and hidden.
Phi Beta Iota: Provides an excellent focus on war as a cultural force, changing relations between generations, between men and women. Concludes that technology and anonymnity are making war possible for any individual to launch and continue, and consequently also making war a concept that must be eliminated as an option at all levels. Ignores the financial reality that war is a business and business is good. Strives to suggest that eliminating the us versus them divide is an essential first step.
There are now almost as many cell phone subscriptions as people.
A new report on global technology development by the International Telecommunication Union found that there were 6 billion mobile subscriptions at the end of 2011 — 7 billion people inhabit Earth. China and India each have around 1 billion subscriptions.
The number of mobile subscriptions is double the number of Internet subscriptions — there are 2.3 billion.
Special Comment: A Brief History of Indicators Analysis
Compilation, examination and analysis of indicators of a nation's war preparations, collectively, are the oldest structured analytical discipline in continuous use by elements of the intelligence agencies since 1947. The discipline began in World War II and British defense intelligence maintained it ever since.
After World War II
In the US, the files of the National Warning Staff contained a thin folder that contained a letter from 1949 from British intelligence to the new CIA, asking for a review of an attached “checklist” of the actions the Soviets would take to prepare to invade West Berlin. The file did not contain the US response, but it was sent to J.J. Hitchcock, the chairman of the Ad Hoc Warning Committee in 1949 and later the first Director of the National Indications Center.
This exchange was the precursor to NATO's Soviet/Warsaw Pact Indicators List, and a few others it spawned. The US had no comparable list but had engaged in an intelligence exchange on warning of war indicators with the British before it had an organized federation of intelligence agencies. Crises came that quick after World War II.
The next benchmark for indicators in the files of the Warning Staff was a purple ink mimeograph copy of the Far East Army G2 indicator list for a Chinese invasion of Korea. It was published in the summer of 1950 and included such prescient indicators as an order from the authorities in Beijing that all contract shipments through Hong Kong must be completed before the end of September 1950, prior to the date of the first Chinese offensive on 5 October.
First Wave: Extensive Development (Expansion across Space using Slaves)
Second Wave: Intensive Development (Material Development Upgrading Slaves to Serfs)
Third Wave: P2P Development (Immaterial Developments Upgrading Serfs to Seers)
10 September 2012
In this thought capsule, inspired by the reading of the very stimulating book Deep History by David Laibman, I’m not going to claim, as others have done, that we are going to evolve to some kind of neo-medievalism, or a new period of dark ages. But rather, that there are some interesting similarities between the slavery-to-feudal transition and the capitalism to P2P transition.
