Easily, one the most inspiring MSM pieces I’ve read in a long time...
The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy
The man who trained more than 66 countries in open source methods calls for re-invention of intelligence to re-engineer Earth
Nafeez Ahmed
The Guardian
June 19, 2014
Robert David Steele, former Marine, CIA case officer, and US co-founder of the US Marine Corps intelligence activity, is a man on a mission. But it's a mission that frightens the US intelligence establishment to its core…
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…The one unlimited resource we have on the planet is the human brain – the current strategy of 1% capitalism is failing because it is killing the Golden Goose at multiple levels. Unfortunately, the gap between those with money and power and those who actually know what they are talking about has grown catastrophic. The rich are surrounded by sycophants and pretenders whose continued employment demands that they not question the premises. As Larry Summers lectured Elizabeth Warren, 'insiders do not criticise insiders.'"
But how can activists actually start moving toward the open source vision now? "For starters, there are eight 'tribes' that among them can bring together all relevant information: academia, civil society including labor unions and religions, commerce especially small business, government especially local, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government/non-profit. At every level from local to global, across every mission area, we need to create stewardship councils integrating personalities and information from all eight tribes. We don't need to wait around for someone else to get started. All of us who recognise the vitality of this possibility can begin creating these new grassroots structures from the bottom-up, right now."...
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...So how does open source everything have the potential to 're-engineer the Earth'? For me, this is the most important question, and Steele's answer is inspiring. "Open Source Everything overturns top-down 'because I say so at the point of a gun' power. Open Source Everything makes truth rather than violence the currency of power. Open Source Everything demands that true cost economics and the indigenous concept of 'seventh generation thinking' – how will this affect society 200 years ahead – become central. Most of our problems today can be traced to the ascendance of unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory capitalism, all based on force and lies and encroachment on the commons. The national security state works for the City of London and Wall Street – both are about to be toppled by a combination of Eastern alternative banking and alternative international development capabilities, and individuals who recognise that they have the power to pull their money out of the banks and not buy the consumer goods that subsidise corruption and the concentration of wealth. The opportunity to take back the commons for the benefit of humanity as a whole is open – here and now."
For Steele, the open source revolution is inevitable, simply because the demise of the system presided over by the 1% cannot be stopped – and because the alternatives to reclaiming the commons are too dismal to contemplate. We have no choice but to step up.
"My motto, a play on the CIA motto that is disgraced every day, is 'the truth at any cost lowers all other costs,'" he tells me. "Others wiser than I have pointed out that nature bats last. We are at the end of an era in which lies can be used to steal from the public and the commons. We are at the beginning of an era in which truth in public service can restore us all to a state of grace."
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Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.)
I know that many reading this will think that it's little more than wishful thinking, but in a very Newtonian sort of way, the longer things stay the same, the more rapidly (hopefully, not violently) the pendulum swings back the other way, when change (actually) does occur. If nothing else, I hope you’ll give Nafeez Ahmed’s column, over at the Guardian from this past Thursday, excerpted above, a complete read to serve as a reminder that, ultimately, things really do change, whether the status quo likes it, or not.
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UPDATE (3:00 PM EDT, 6/24/14): For a variety of reasons, I've considered taking this post down; however, on face value and without respect to its source (I strongly disagree with about 90% of Steele's other "philosophical leanings," some of which are downright batshit crazy), it will stand on its merits. After all's said and done, even Ron Wyden and Mark Udall agree that people like Rand Paul, who's--from a philosophical standpoint--usually batshit crazy, occasionally get it right, too.
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