Reid – Public Intelligence Blog

Chuck Spinney sends….

The Afghan debacle is becoming a case study of how political debate in Versailles drips in a naturally self-organizing way to protect the dysfunctional status quo.

As I indicated yesterday and in September, the fundamental flaw that set the stage for the current policy making fiasco was the unexamined analytical hole in General McChrystal's escalation strategy — namely, its dependence of the rapid expansion of the corrupt and ineffective Afghan national security forces. McChrystal did not analyze this corruption/ineffectiveness issue, but that crucial omission was ignored the hoorah accompanying the immediate leaking of report by his allies buried somewhere in the Versailles apparat.

Continue reading “Journal: Versailles on the Potomac Implodes…Again”

Reid, Herbert G. and Taylor, Betsy, :John Dewey's Aesthetic Ecology of Public Intelligence and the Grounding of Civic Environmentalism” in Ethics & the Environment – Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 74-92

This paper argues for the importance of John Dewey's aesthetic philosophy to recent efforts to cultivate civic environmentalism while critiquing narrowly conservationist environmentalisms. We call for a strong version of civic environmentalism oriented towards holistic integration of ecological concerns into all aspects of social, political, economic, and cultural life. Such a civic environmentalism argues that it is not enough to strive to preserve enclaved ‘wilderness' or ‘biodiversity' (as important as that is). It argues also for fundamental changes in the political and economic status quo, because ecological havoc is understood to be integrally linked with the structural forces that are increasing inequality and weakening democratic.

Continue reading “Journal: Environmental Lip Service vs the Real Deal”