Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2687 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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Henry_Giroux_book_photo_2 — Henry Giroux

Why Don't Americans Care About Democracy at Home?

truth-out.org, Tuesday, 02 October 2012 13:47

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin

Four decades of neoliberal policies have given way to an economic Darwinism that promotes a politics of cruelty. And its much vaunted ideology is taking over the United States.[1] As a theater of cruelty and mode of public pedagogy, economic Darwinism undermines all forms of solidarity capable of challenging market-driven values and social relations. At the same time, economic Darwinism promotes the virtues of an unbridled individualism that is almost pathological in its disdain for community, social responsibility, public values and the public good. As the welfare state is dismantled and spending is cut to the point where government becomes unrecognizable – except to promote policies that benefit the rich, corporations and the defense industry – the already weakened federal and state governments are increasingly replaced by the harsh realities of the punishing state and what João Biehl has called proliferating “zones of social abandonment” and “terminal exclusion.”[2]

Continue reading “Henry Giroux: The USA's Politics and Economics of Cruelty & the Disposable Underclass”

2012/10/022012/10/02

Michel Bauwens: Technology-Enabled Sharing Economy Going Mainstream?

Culture, Economics/True Cost

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220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

Can the Sharing Economy Cross to the Mainstream?

EXTRACT:

The resounding message of the sharing economy is that it fosters relationships and builds communities. So far, it has focused primarily on the self-interested values of saving money and making money from the idle resources in order to appeal to consumers. The sharing economy should incorporate self-transcending values such as sustainability and goodness to its core message in order to achieve behavior change and cross to the mainstream.

Read full article.

2012/10/022012/10/02

Sepp Hasslberger: Hungarian Pre-Fab Homes Creates Twice the Energy It Consumes

05 Energy, 11 Society

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Hungary's Odooproject prefab home produces twice the amount of energy it consumes

On the eve of the opening of the European Solar Decathlon, a team from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is ready to present its innovative solar-powered prefab home, which produces twice the amount of energy than it consumes. The decathlon is an international competition among universities which promotes research in the development of energy-effective and light-structured residential buildings that only use solar energy. This year the prestigious competition is being hosted in Madrid, Spain and will see a selection of university entries from across Europe, including Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, The United Kingdom and Romania, and four more from China, Japan, Brazil and Egypt.

Read full article and see more photos.

2012/10/022012/10/04

Berto Jongman: Johan Galtung Keynote to UN Human Rights Council – Twelve Theses for Creating a New Equitable World That Works for All

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics

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Peace, human rights and development in multi-polar and evolving world

Johan Galtung

TMS, 2 October 2012

Keynote Speech at the UN Human Rights Council SOCIAL FORUM – Oct 1, 2012

Your Excellencies!

The title for this Sixth Social Forum – in the context of the 10 Articles of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development of 4 December 1986 – is very well chosen. The focus is on people-centered development – as opposed to system – centered economic growth. And on globalization, a challenging process involving all states and regions, nations and civilizations, humans and nature – as opposed to a globalized market with only three free flows, of capital, goods and services, not labor; increasing the global economic gap.

And this in the context of rampant poverty, widening domestic inequalities, economic crises due to the disconnect between real and finance economies and greedy speculation, rising unemployment and popular unrest. Yesterday’s map dividing the world in developed and developing countries makes little sense when many of the developed are de-developing, declining, and many of the developing, emerging, on the way up–like BRICS–pass them on their way down. A new world.

Permit me Twelve Theses addressing this serious situation.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Johan Galtung Keynote to UN Human Rights Council – Twelve Theses for Creating a New Equitable World That Works for All”

2012/10/02

Winslow Wheeler: Defense Budget Rhetoric Part II

Corruption, Military

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WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

The mantra is: Nothing is too good for our boys in combat; that means our equipment is expensive but also so effective it is the master of the battlefield. The cost is actually even more than you are told and the demonstrated performance is far less. There are many examples of this bad bargain (extremely high cost for very disappointing performance), but the F-22 is perhaps the pinnacle of the myth.

I explain in the second part of a series at Time's Battleland blog at and below.

Adventures in Babbleland: Technological Bloat

By Winslow Wheeler | October 2, 2012 |

Second of two articles (first one here)

The most prominent effect of a major increase of money in the defense budget since 2001 has been decay in our forces. It has consisted of fewer combat units (such as Air Force squadrons and battleforce ships), aging of our major weapons inventories, and declining readiness of fighting personnel, such as pilots and tank drivers. It has actually been occurring for decades, as some insightful people have been pointing out for a long time.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Less training for F-22 pilots and a potentially toxic environment in an airplane that cannot vastly outperform older, cheaper “legacy” aircraft is just one example of the high cost technological bloat that clogs our armed forces. Other examples include, but are hardly limited to, the hapless Littoral Combat Ship, the unaffordable F-35, missile defenses that fail even in cooperative testing, and high cost, low effectiveness Reaper drones.

Read full article.

2012/10/022012/10/27

Anthony Judge: Sensing a Dynamic Pattern of Transformations

Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Ethics, Knowledge

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In Quest of a Dynamic Pattern of Transformations: Sensing the strange attractor of an emerging Rosetta Stone

Table of Contents

Introduction
Pattern of transformations as a dynamic quality without a name
Embodying the dynamic subtleties of living experience
Re-cognition of transformation in various domains
Interweaving fundamental patterning approaches to transformation
Modulating cognitive transformations: electrical metaphors and semiconduction
Potential emergence of coherent transformational connectivity
From polyocular Rosetta “stone” to complex polysensorial dynamic
Conclusion
References

Read full reflections at source.

2012/10/022012/10/02

Paul Craig Roberts: Hal O’Leary Poem “But What of Truth”

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

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Poetry communicates with fewer words.

BUT WHAT OF TRUTH

by Hal O’Leary

For now, the loss of truth’s the only known.
The truth’s become old fashioned. Could this be?
With lies, we have decided to condone,
Just what the end will be, I cannot see.

The truth is now old fashioned. Could this be,
Like chastity and people you can trust?
Just what the end will be, I cannot see,
For those believing life was somehow just.

Like chastity and people you can trust,
A thing called love could also disappear
For those believing life was somehow just.
We’ve got to make an effort, or I fear

A thing called love could also disappear,
To set each individual apart.
We’ve got to make an effort, or I fear
There is the chance that we could lose the heart.

To set each individual apart,
With lies we have decided to condone,
There is the chance that we could lose the heart.
For now, the loss of truth’s the only known.