Public Intelligence Blog

David Swanson

The Betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize

Alfred Nobel’s will, written in 1895, left funding for a prize to be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

The first such prize, awarded in 1901, went to Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy, two men who held and promoted peace congresses, two peace activists, two men who were not elected officials.  Nor were they war makers who had exercised restraint in some instance or other.  In 1902, again, the peace prize went to two peace activists.  In 1903 the prize went to a member of the British Parliament, but one who had worked for peace and not for war.  In 1904, the laureate was what we would now call an NGO, but one that had worked for peace and not for war.  In 1905, a woman who had played a role in the creation of the prize, an author and a peace activist, someone who indeed held and promoted peace congresses, was the first female winner.  And then came 1906.

In 1906, the Nobel prize for peace was awarded to a lover of war by the name of Theodore Roosevelt.  He had up to that point done, and would continue until his death to do, more to promote war than peace.  Was it possible that he had nonetheless done the most or the best work for international fraternity, demilitarization, and peace congresses?  Frankly, no.  He was prominent.  He was a president of a rising empire.  Those, and his negotiating a peace between two other nations, were not sufficient qualifications.  A disastrous trend had begun in the very mixed history of the peace prize.

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Robert David STEELE Vivas

Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories

Does Google have a responsibility to help stop the spread of 9/11 denialism, anti-vaccine activism, and other fringe beliefs? 

It’s Not Just the Politicians Who Have Cheapened the Defense Debate

Winslow Wheeler

Descent into Ignominy

The Heritage Foundation Then and Now

By Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Chuck Spinney & Winslow Wheeler

Almost 30 years ago, in 1983, The Heritage Foundation stepped forward as a thoughtful, independent thinking participant in the then-raging debate over Ronald Reagan’s defense budget increases. In one of its major policy publications, Heritage published an insightful analysis with an unambiguous conclusion: “The increased spending secured by President Reagan should afford significant improvements in force size. It does not.” (See Agenda ’83: A Mandate for Leadership Report, Richard N. Holwill, ed., The Heritage Foundation, 1983; see chapter 4, p. 69 of “Defense” by George W.S. Kuhn.) The analysis was crammed with data and straightforward logic as it made the case for real reform in America’s overpriced, underperforming defense budget.

Since then, Heritage has come a long way in defense policy analysis, all of it downward.

Read full indictment.

Phi Beta Iota:  The corrupt government is surrounded by thousands–perhaps tens of thousands–of corrupt second-string piglets.  While most people are good people trapped in a bad system, the net result is that everyone lies and the public trust is betrayed.  The truth at any cost lowers all others costs.  2012 is the year in which we battle for the soul of the Republic.

John Steiner

Click here to sign your name:
“Google, stand up for democracy and your users—quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce!”

Dear MoveOn member,

Right now we have a huge opportunity to deal what’s being called a “serious blow to one of Washington’s most powerful lobbies.”1

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an army of lobbyists for hire by mega-corporations like banks and those in the fossil fuel industry. In 2009, it spent more corporate money on lobbying than the next five biggest spenders combined.2 And 93% of its campaign spending goes to support Republicans and attack Democrats.3

Google is a paying member of the Chamber, which means that part of the money they make from Google users—ordinary people like us using Gmail, Google search, and other Google products—goes into the Chamber’s pockets to fight for Wall Street and Big Oil. But the Washington Post and Politico recently reported that at Google headquarters, employees are intensely debating whether Google should quit the Chamber in the next few weeks.4

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Chuck Spinney

Patrick Seale is one of the finest and most experienced writers now reporting on the Middle East

Averting Civil War in Syria

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 22 Nov 2011

Syria is heading for a bloody sectarian civil war. The mutual kidnappings, torture, beheadings and displacement of populations taking place between the Sunni and Alawi communities in the central city of Homs — often described as “the capital of the revolution” — send a fearsome signal of what might be in store for the rest of the country.

To avert this descent into hell must surely be the immediate priority of Arab leaders and the international community.

The Iraqi example next door is there for all to see. The Anglo-American invasion destroyed a major Arab country. The country’s institutions and infrastructure were shattered; sectarian demons were released, triggering a civil war. Hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced from their homes or forced to flee abroad. The country was dismembered as the Kurds established their own semi-independent statelet.

Syria needs the intervention of a high-powered, neutral, contact group to stop the killing on both sides.

Read more.

See this provoking chart/map of various media organizations with questionable ties. As usual, the simple question of “who is the funding source?” leads to essential/core information. An updated version of this is needed.

(Invitation only)
AGENDA

Supposedly it will be livestreamed from the conference website.

Chuck Spinney

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created

CounterPunch, October 11, 2011

To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 U.N. action on Israel-Palestine.

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the U.N. created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the U.S. governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

In reality, while the U.N. General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.

Third, the U.S. administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.

It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.

Let us look at the specifics.

Read full article with specifics.

Phi Beta Iota:  The specifics demonstrate with great clarity that at the time the U.S. Government had intelligence but lacked integrity.  Today the U.S. Government lacks both intelligence and integrity.  Electoral Reform is the sole possible demand that can resolve the crisis of US democracy and US capitalism run amok–inverted into velvet theatrical facism.

Patrick Meier

Real Time LRA Crisis Map Tracks Mass Atrocities in Central Africa

My colleagues at Resolve and Invisible Children have just launched their very impressive Crisis Map of LRA Attacks in Central Africa. The LRA, or Lord’s Resistance Army, is a brutal rebel group responsible for widespread mass atrocities, most of which go completely unreported because the killings and kidnappings happen in remote areas. This crisis map has been a long time in the making so I want to sincerely congratulate Michael Poffenberger, Sean Poole, Adam Finck, Kenneth Transier and the entire team for the stellar job they’ve done with this project. The LRA Crisis Tracker is an  important milestone for the fields of crisis mapping and early warning.

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Howard Rheingold

Announcing a new Rheingold U course: Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation

For the past ten years, I’ve worked with Institute for the Future to track the emergence of a new story about how humans get things done together. The old story of survival of the fittest, competition, rational self-interest is changing as new knowledge comes to light about cooperative arrangements and complex interdependencies in cells, ecosystems, economies, and humans. In 2005, I delivered a TED talk about this subject; the video has been viewed more than 182,000 times. In the same year, I co-taught a seminar at Stanford with Andrea Saveri of Institute for the Future, “Toward a Literacy of Cooperation.” This six week Rheingold U course builds on the texts, videos, and other materials developed over the past ten years. Under my direction, co-learners will inquire, collaborate, discuss, co-construct knowledge about the building blocks and conceptual frames of a new literacy of cooperation. The course will run September 30 – November 11

The syllabus
The schedule of live meetings

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