Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2804 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

2012/05/212012/05/22

Review: The Zen Leader – 10 Ways to Go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Intelligence (Public), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

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Ginny Whitelaw

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars, Spectacularly SImple, Foundation Book for Epoch B Collective Self-Governance,May 21, 2012

I've been a driven over-achiever most of my life, and only started emerging from the “because I said so” culture so characteristic of the Marine Corps and the Central Intelligence Agency, when I realized in 1988 that everything we were doing was NOT WORKING, and I started looking beyond government, beyond command & control, beyond “rule by secrecy,” for answers. Tom Atlee and his book, The Tao of Democracy: Using co-intelligence to create a world that works for all were for me a rite of passage. Since embracing Tom's wisdom in 2004 I have read a great deal more. If Tom's book was my introduction to the world of collaboration and collective intelligence, then this book is my graduate-level portal in which I start the transformative process of moving away from impacting on”it” to being part of “it,” a more neutral invested role that stops trying to project “the” answer on recalcitrant bureaucracies, and instead supports emerging networks such as Occupy and the Tea Party and the Freedom Node to Tower to Mesh movement.

I rate this book at six stars and beyond (my top 10% out of 1800+ non-fiction reviews) for multiple reasons. I will read it again and then donate it.

Continue reading “Review: The Zen Leader – 10 Ways to Go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly”

2012/05/212012/05/21

Search: oss.net/HACK and others

Searches

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All of the short-cuts are decommissioned, they are the one thing we could not switch from Sweden.

oss.net/HACK [Reinventing Intelligence]: 1995 Re-Inventing Intelligence The Vision and the Strategy

Other shortcuts are reconnected here within Phi Beta Iota, but do not work in and of themselves:

www.oss.net/AMAZON: 2007 Amazon as Hub of World Brain

www.oss.net/GNOME: 2007 Open Everything: We Won, Let’s Self-Govern

www.oss.net/BASIC [one-page of links]: REPLACED by Phi Beta Iota

www.oss.net/HIST1 [Opposition]: History of Opposition (14)

www.oss.net/HIST2 [Historic Contributions]: Historic Contributions (268)

www.oss.net/LIBRARY [sortable searchable]: REPLACED by Phi Beta Iota

www.oss.net/OSINT-S [strategic OSINT]: 2008 Open Source Intelligence (Strategic)

www.oss.net/OSINT-O [operational OSINT]: 2008 Open Source Intelligence (Operational)

www.oss.net/FORBES: 2006 Forbes Blank Slate On Intelligence

www.oss.net/TIME: 2002 TIME Magazine The New Craft of Intelligence

www.oss.net/UNICEF [Open Intelligence]: 2009 Briefing: Open Everything at UNICEF in NYC

www.oss.net/UNODIN [UN Class Before One]:2007 United Nations “Class Before One” Infomation-Sharing and Analytics Orientation

www.oss.net/VIRTUAL [USIP]: 1999 Virtual Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Resolution through Information Peacekeeping (Journal of Conflict Resolution, Spring 1999)

Generally we find it most productive to search via Google adding source=phibeteaiota

The various directories for articles & chapters, briefings & lectures

2012/05/21

Paul Craig Roberts: Recovery or Collapse? I’m Betting Collapse

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

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Recovery or Collapse? Bet on Collapse

May 20, 2012

The US financial system and, probably, the financial system of Europe, like the police, no longer serves a useful social purpose.

In the US the police have proven themselves to be a greater threat to public safety than private sector criminals. I just googled “police brutality” and up came 183,000,000 results. (Here are two recent brutal assaults, one deadly, by police on hapless individuals: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/kelly-thomas-video-dad-they-are-killing-me-.html and http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31364.htm )

The cost to society of the private financial system is even higher. Writing in CounterPunch (May 18), Rob Urie reports that two years ago Andrew Haldane, executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England (the UK’s version of the Federal Reserve) said that the financial crisis, now four years old, will in the end cost the world economy between $60 trillion and $200 trillion in lost GDP. If Urie’s report is correct, this is an astonishing admission from a member of the ruling elite. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/18/the-true-costs-of-bank-crises/print

Try to get your mind around these figures. The US GDP, the largest in the world, is about 15 trillion. What Haldane is telling us is that the financial crisis will end up costing the world lost real income between 4 and 13 times the size of the current Gross Domestic Product of the United States. This could turn out to be an optimistic forecast.

In the end, the financial crisis could destroy Western civilization.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Recovery or Collapse? I'm Betting Collapse”

2012/05/21

Chuck Spinney: The Afghanistan Exit – Looting the Useful Idiots to the Bitter End

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Military

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When Alexander the Great decided to leave Afghanistan, his plan was to exit via the Khyber Pass and march though what is now Pakistan and thence into India. But the Khyber was blocked by a warring Pashtun tribe. Legend has it that Alex's exit strategy was to bribe another Pashtun tribe to open the door by attacking and driving off the first tribe. The gambit worked and he escaped with his forces largely intact, Alexander looked shrewd in the history books. But is that the whole story?

I have often wondered if old Alex was snookered by two tribes in cahoots in a scheme to extort money and divide the proceeds from an invader desperate to leave. Of course we will never know if this actually happened, but as the following report in yesterday's Sunday Times suggests, my speculation has a quintessential Pashtun flavor and is therefore not outside the realm of probability.

Chuck Spinney
Port Cogolin, France

Afghan Troops And Tailban In Pact To Loot NATO Convoys

Secret alliances threaten to undermine the West's strategy of handing more responsibility for security to local forces

By Miles Amoore and Christina Lamb, London Sunday Times, May 20, 2012

THE two men should be sworn enemies. One is a Taliban commander waging what he says is a holy war against foreign soldiers in Afghanistan. The other is an Afghan army officer trained and paid by Nato to fight the Taliban.

Yet rather than do battle, the two men have forged a secret alliance. In the area of Ghazni province where both are based, just an hour's drive south of Kabul, they collaborate to loot Nato supply convoys, dividing up the proceeds. They even share intelligence about military operations.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: The Afghanistan Exit – Looting the Useful Idiots to the Bitter End”

2012/05/21

David Swanson: Lisa Savage on Why She Heckled Tony Blair

Academia, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

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Why I Heckled Tony Blair, War Criminal, at Colby College Graduation

BY LISA SAVAGE

If you woke on a beautiful spring Sunday in May on a pond in Maine, what would you do? A canoe ride on water as smooth as glass, and breakfast on the deck, perhaps — followed by disrupting international war criminal Tony Blair at Colby College graduation in Waterville!

Who knew our protest would lead news coverage of the ceremony? (Washington Post, WGME, Houston Chronicle, and Daily Mail, to name a few.)

With the BLAIR IS A WAR CRIMINAL sign I scrawled hastily in pink lipstick, we approached the back row of the outdoor ceremony where the former British PM, who lied about WMDs in Iraq and has the blood on his hands of thousands of innocent civilians, was to speak.

Before we even made it off the street we were approached by a man from Vermont who said, “Thank you for being here. I was disgusted that Colby would invite such a slimy speaker for graduation this year.” (More of the disgusted were heard from in Op-Ed News and the local newspapers.)

Activists Protest in Chicago — Click on Image to Enlarge

– – – – – – – – –

As we left the campus I saw an acquaintance who works at Colby, in a pretty dress, standing obediently off to one side.

I feel that the passivity and complicity of US citizens in the dirty dealings of NATO and its member nations, blindly paying federal taxes every year to fund the slaughter of innocents, afraid to protest, afraid to rock the boat for fear of job loss or being seen as impolite, is actually the biggest threat to global security.

And that's why, as my compatriots were protesting the disgusting spectacle of the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, I disrupted Colby College's graduation ceremony.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The unasked questions pertain to the judgment and moral vacuum of the university leadership that invited Blair in the first place, and the empty heads of the graduates that did not think to question the invitation. We are running short of good people with both intelligence and integrity. Evil is assuredly in the ascent.

2012/05/202012/05/20

Gordon Duff: Veterans Today Open Letter to President Obama

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government

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Mr. President, We Have Had Enough

Time For You To Finally Listen

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

Mr. President, here is my statement of purpose. I am just a writer, not even by decent standards an “activist.” We supported you four years ago, my estimate producing about 50,000 votes. We are much more than ten times that now. Please ask someone, we, even I, control more votes than you can imagine, more than any newspaper in the United States.

As for some kind of report, please get yourself properly informed as to who your base is and what we expect. We are not the idiots we were, not so many of us. Treating us as such is an epic error.

This week, we watched the NDAA “Soviet America” bill overturned by a court, a bill you signed but said you did so only reluctantly. It was illegal when you signed it and continuing to do things like this, you and congress, is wearing thin. We are losing patience. We don’t even hate you. You made sure of that by cleverly manipulating the GOP into nominating the most hateful, criminal and abysmal candidate in its history.

A Mormon bishop whose religious beliefs are totally inconsistent with freedom, equality, peace and honesty, as president? What could any of them have been thinking?

Romney could actually be a member of the Bush family. Perhaps we should check on that. Running against a crook doesn’t make up for years of smooth talk, of phony “populism” and bowing to special interest. We are totally sick of it and now it is you and the incompetence of those around you that is destroying America and killing us.

Continue reading “Gordon Duff: Veterans Today Open Letter to President Obama”

2012/05/202012/05/21

Eagle: Digital Citizen Web Application Now Live

Cultural Intelligence

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• InterAct Launches Digital Citizen Embeddable Web App

The Digital Citizen web app is now live at http://www.digitalcitizen.tv/forum_01/embed.html. The app allows website visitors to post video or text comments, share their comments across social networks and vote up the best contributions. We are proud to be working with The Bay Area News Group’s Oakland Tribune and the Maynard Institute on this first use of the Digital Citizen app, to collect comments for an upcoming forum on gun violence in Oakland, CA.

Over the summer the Digital Citizen app will be used in conjunction with television broadcasters and other journalism organizations, to help citizens speak out on national and local issues.

• The Tea Party – Occupy Connection

“TPOWS” brings Occupy and Tea Party members, independents, centrists, and activists together to find and take action on issues of shared concern. From Tennessee to Oregon, Ft. Wayne to Philly, a growing number of civilized policy discussions and joint efforts are taking place. Digital Citizen has been tracking them at The Tea Party Occupy Connection Chronicle. As the network grows, we will hold a Google+ live webcam “Hangout” event, giving participants across the country a way to connect with each other.

digital citizen cycle — Click on Image to Enlarge

HOW DIGITAL CITIZEN WORKS

Digital Citizen builds a bridge between personal media and mass media, by incorporating the faces, voices and ideas of the web-based community, and transforming them via sophisticated facilitation techniques into Informed Citizens who are able play a significant role in television news programs and live events.

Digital Citizen is premised on the belief that, given the opportunity, Americans can become informed participants, rising to the challenges of addressing today’s flawed political realities. Partners and collaborators include the Bay Area News Group, Personal Democracy Media, the League of Women Voters of California, OaklandLocal.com, the young voter website Ourtime.org, The Kansas City Star, and other journalism and community organizations.

Digital Citizen is an initiative of Internews Interactive (InterAct) a non-profit pioneer in citizen engagement since 1998, which serves as a strategic partner in innovative media design. Our clients and partners have included the World Bank, PBS.org, Amnesty International, the San Francisco Sherriff’s Department, Twin Cities Public TV, Link TV, and many more. See digitalcitizen2012.tumblr.com for a detailed description of the Digital Citizen Initiative, and citizenschannel.org for and overview of InterAct’s history.