Open Source Government…

There is a movement in America to make government more transparent…

Social Media in Australia…

In the last year the rise of Gov2.0 in australia…colloborative work with people…bringing citizens into government…open data components…at first the major media ignored it but now they have been praising it…how does government deal with a social media backlash…governments are going to learn how to recognize how to deal wtih it…

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Political Protest In Iran

The rise of social media has made it very difficult for those who want to control the message. Social Networking tools like You Tube spread viral messages around the globe in seconds.

End of government…

The latter list includes some of the spectacularly mind-numbing American pursuits that Chris Hedges examines in Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Hedges submits that while they mesmerized large portions of the American citizenry, CEOs being paid millions of dollars a year to run companies that feed on taxpayer money usurped our government — with the help of elected officials bought by campaign contributions and tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists who now write many of the nation’s laws.

“Those captivated by the cult of celebrity do not examine voting records or compare verbal claims with written and published facts and reports,” Hedges writes. “The reality of their world is whatever the latest cable news show, political leader, advertiser, or loan officer says is reality. The illiterate, semiliterate, and those who live as though they are illiterate are effectively cut off from the past. They live in an eternal present. They do not understand the predatory loan deals that drive them into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They cannot decipher the fine print on credit card agreements that plunge them into unmanageable debt. They repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans. They seek refuge in familiar brands and labels. … Life is a state of permanent amnesia, a world in search of new forms of escapism and quick, sensual gratification.”

Virtous Ignorance….

Commonsense Conservatism hinges on the not-so-tacit assumption that the average, hardworking churchgoer, like the ladies at the booth, equipped with the fundamental, God-given ability to distinguish right from wrong, is in a better position to judge, on “principle,” the merits of an economic policy or the deployment of American troops abroad than “the ‘experts’”–a term here unfailingly placed between derisive quotation marks. Desiccated expertise, of the kind possessed by economists, environmental scientists, and overinformed reporters from the lamestream media, clouds good judgment; Palin’s life, by contrast, is presented as one of passion, sincerity, and principle. Going Rogue, in other words, is a four-hundred-page paean to

Warfare State…

The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans.

Joseph Henchman, director of state projects for the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C., says the states collected a total of $781 billion in taxes in 2008.

For a rough comparison, according to Wikipedia data, the total budget for what the Pentagon calls “defense” in fiscal year 2010 will be at least $880 billion and could possibly top $1 trillion. That’s more than all the state governments collect.

Henchman says all American local governments combined (cities, counties, etc.) collect about $500 billion in taxes. Add that to total state tax take and you get over $1.3 trillion. This means Uncle Sam’s Pentagon is sopping up nearly as much money as all state, county, city, and other governmental units spend to run the country.

If the Pentagon figure of $1 trillion is somewhat less than all other taxing authorities, keep in mind the FBI, the various intelligence agencies, the VA, the National Institutes of Health (biological warfare) are also spending on war-related activities.

A question that describes the above and answers itself is: In what area can the Federal government operate where states and cities cannot tread? The answer is: foreign affairs–raising armies, fighting wars, conducting diplomacy, etc. And so Uncle Sam keeps enlarging this area. His emphasis is not on diplomacy, either.

For every buck spent by the State Department, which gets some $50 billion a year, the Pentagon spends $20. As for the Peace Corps, its budget is a paltry $375 million–hardly enough to keep the Pentagon elephant in peanuts.

Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and finance authority Linda Bilmes write in their “The Three Trillion Dollar War” (W.W. Norton), “defense spending has been growing as a percentage of discretionary funding (money that is not required to be spent on entitlements like Social Security), from 48 percent in 2000 to 51 percent today. That means that our defense needs are gobbling up a larger share of taxpayers’ money than ever before.”

And they add, “The Pentagon’s budget has increased by more than $600 billion, cumulatively, since we invaded Iraq.” With its 1,000 bases in the U.S. and another 800 bases globally, the U.S. truly has become a “Warfare State.” Today, military-related products account for about one-fourth of total U.S. GDP. This includes 10,000 nuclear weapons. Indeed, the U.S. has lavished $5.5 trillion just on nukes over the past 70 years.

No other nation has anything remotely like this menacing global presence. The Pentagon strengthens its grip by running joint “training” exercises with the military of 110 other nations, including outright dictatorships that suppress internal unrest.

The U.S. spends more on weaponry than the next dozen nations combined and is by far the No. 1 world arms peddler. “The government employs some 6,500 people just to coordinate and administer its arms sales program in conjunction with senior officials at American embassies around the world, who spend most of their ‘diplomatic’ careers working as arms salesmen,” writes Chalmers Johnson in “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire(Henry Holt).”

Chalmers goes on to say the U.S. military establishment today is “close to being beyond civilian control” and that despite its ability to “deliver death and destruction to any target on earth and expect little in the way of retaliation” it demands more and newer equipment “while the Pentagon now more or less sets its own agenda” and “monopolizes the formulation and conduct of American foreign policy.”

How long will it be before this tyrannical, anti-democratic, colossus that is sucking up as much money for war as all states, counties and cities spend on peace–and which straddles the globe, boosts dictators, and beats the war drums–turns on its own people?

(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations executive who formerly worked for major dailies and wire services. Contact him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)

Chappaqua School Board..

I watched a good portion of the Chappaqua school budget meeting on cable access. There was something fascinating about the minutia of detail. They’ve even compared themselves to a government when they were talking about4 a credit swap. There was a lot of concern over Patterson’s impending cuts…in Westchster, it’s all about the schools…

Ron Paul on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize…

I agree wholeheartedly with Ron Paul’s assessment of the hypocrisy of Barrack Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize…anyone who had been deeply following politics the last two years would not be surprised by this. Obama is nothing more than a manufactured brand to appeal to liberals who are easily fooled by image politics. A deeper study of Obama says he is part of the same corrupt politcal establisment.

Ralph Nader at Fordham

Ralph Nader spoke to the students and the faculty at Fordham University on December 3, 2009. He delivered a lecture on gaining control in the marketplace where we grow up corporate. In a subtle analysis of culture Nader offered insights into how citizen’s imaginations are constrained by corporate power restricting their possibility for action. For Nader, it’s all about action which makes his outlook existential in essence. Existence for him is defined by the conflict between the consumer and the corporation where at evert possible turn the corporation seeks to upsurp the rights of the consumer to promote it’s vested interests and deny citizens their lawful rights for the possibility of action.

In Mr. Nader’s view, American society is thoroughly corrupted by the all pervasice interest of the corporation. This means that all the institutions of society reflect the will of the corporation. To support this view he offered several personal amusing ancedotes which made the young audience laugh. Despite the serious nature of his talk, Mr. Nader has a very comical demeanor at times which belies the crusty image fostered on him by the mainstream corporate media. Regarding the field of education talked about his efforts in vain to learn about laws for food safety and the rights of tenants. Students are taught the skills that are handsomely rewarded by corporations so during his days at Harvard law tax law was a big field of interest because corporations require the talent to circumvent tax law. Making a subtle point Mr. Nader remarked how students are not don’t any consumer or civic skills. Hence we politicians selliing their services to high bidding lobbyists to enact laws which are agaiinst the interests of consumers.

Evoking the English poet William Blake, Mr. Nader made his probing point on how the lack of imagination restricts our actions and hence our possibilities as individuals humans to realize our true potential.

Ralph Nader at Fordham from robert dene on Vimeo.

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Westchester…

Politics in Westchester…local…town oriented…revolving around the property tax…so it’s like this…I was kicking it around the tube last night channel surfing from one boring show to another and landed on a repeat of community on nccfv…they repeat it all the time and I watch it from time it from time to time because I have a twisted sense of humor and you can find out the weirdest shit watching this stuff….so on it comes and there is that smug Rick H. on. Not that he’s a bad guy but it’s like their little club…he was interviewing Michael Kapolwitz, who is coiuntry legislator in Westchester who loves sucking it up in the qua…a nut and bolts type of guy which is what works in this hood….what would be the point of clintoin charisma around here…what was interesting about his rap was his analysis of the property tax which funds the school systems around here…it’s racist a heart and it’s how they keep their elitist stature…
…so his solution to keep costs down was to consilidate offices…instead of having individual fiefdoms you could make into regional offices…not a bad idea but I can see that going over well with the school systems…it’s all about the schools around these parts…and that’s social promotion…not critical thinking…and in another telling moment as this was taped in early october he went onto to whale on rick astorino who went on to destroy andy spano in the election…it was all very chummy….then robin stout came on who was running for re-election which is funny in of itself because it was uncontested…and in another telling moment, he said, “I’ll see ya on the train, rick.”

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