WI In The Lab
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers On Infiltration of Occupations, with Commentary by Monte and Proof by WikiLeaks
01 March 2012
original article @ http://www.truth-out.org/infiltration-disrupt-divide-and-mis-direct-are-widespread-occupy-part-i/133036910
this version also @ montesite.net … an additional very interesting article containing actual evidence is
WikiLeaks Exposes Department of Homeland Security Spying on Occupy Movement @ http://www.truth-out.org/wikileaks-exposes-dhs-spying-occupy-movement/1330533841
My Commentary:
When I spout off I often imply the following, but here I want to make sure I’m clear. While I have studied this topic, and am probably about to compile and publish another list of (re)sources on the topic, the following post is my personal opinion and advice on concerns involving infiltration. While some of this has seen wide agreement when previously shared, the situation is very quickly evolving and I have no insight based on 21st Century experience, excepting from perusal of published materials.
I have seen a lot of people who spend a long time trying to wrap their heads around how stupid police infiltrators can look when they seem to be very obvious about what they are doing. Law enforcement knows more than anyone else that they cannot keep us in line unless they inspire us to police ourselves; this is the real meaning of “the thin blue line”. The infiltrator method is intended to sow dis-unity within and make us look bad without, they cannot do this unless it is obvious to us that they can repeatedly break the law in this manner with impunity.
As well, any student of military tactics and history learns early and often that distraction and misdirection are primary tools of the hierarch. Next time you’re wondering why someone infiltrating is being so easily spotted, look to the other side of the park and see who cometh there.
Unless you have proof that someone is an infiltrator, it is not a good internal political tactic to accuse one’s internal opposition of having ulterior motive(s). The more obvious it is to you, the less it needs to be said, the less obvious the more you need to respect the other’s right, and your ability, to be wrong, otherwise you may well be doing the infiltrators’ job by sowing needless dissent. It is a core tactic of the infiltrator to foster the belief that you have been infiltrated and that you cannot trust your “leadership”, and that real leaders cannot trust one another. Debate an idea on it’s merits, use logic and reason, then it won’t matter who is an infiltrator, and it won’t matter who cries out another is infiltrating.
Not every long term infiltrator is there to lead from the front, or from behind, some are there to do the hard work patiently until they have the trust of the innermost circle(s), these can be trusted to accomplish group goals better than most “legit” volunteers… don’t show then the door, use them (they may even turn to your side).
In a truly egalitarian organizational culture, there is no power to compel secret actions, and thus no danger from infiltrators that really matters internally. The occupy movement will continue to be immune as long as it remains legal and truly leaderless.
There is not much that one can say that they don’t already know, the trust of the inner core is not sought to gain secrets as much as to plant unsustainable ideas for action and to sow division.
Their tactics are ever changing, as they must be. Consensus, transparency, and ubiquitous video transmissions change everything, but naivety remains.
Thinking and speaking honestly and clearly may be our only weapons but they are the powerful weapons that obtain exactly the results we seek.
Even if you know they are an infiltrator, the first thing to point out is that their logic is wrong, esp. when it is ad hominem (read about logic and reason, define “ad hominem” rather saying “personal attack”).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Always remember that unless secrecy, breaking the law, and/or violence, become your objective(s), infiltrators cannot legally hurt you, yet also remember they may well feel less constrained by law than you should.
In effect, if we proceed, and respond, appropriately, all that infiltrators can do is to keep us on task and make us be honest with each other and ourselves.
Infiltration is a scary and complex topic that merits a lot of study and is not ever well enough covered, but one’s response need not be fear and constant self-censorship. That response is their goal.
Horizontal and transparent power relations and decision taking, remaining observant, seeking modified consensus, trusting your friends to be wrong for all the right reasons, and logical reasoning of proposed actions, and arguments for them, these are the only useful responses.
One of the few things that give me hope is the way saboteur infiltration makes us stay on the cutting edge, if we are to remain effective at all. They are a major force driving our evolution towards the anti-hierarchy, egalitarian informational communications, reasoned logical debate, and death of ideology, which the wider consensus has long longed for.
Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy
Monday 27 February 2012
by: Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Occupy Washington, DC | Report
This is Part I of a two part series on infiltration of Occupy and what the movement can do about limiting the damage of those who seek to destroy us from within. This first article describes public reports of infiltration as well as results of a survey and discussions with occupiers about this important issue. The second article will examine the history of political infiltration and steps we can take to address it.
In the first five months, the Occupy Movement has had major victories and has altered the debate about the economy. People in the power structure and who hold different political views are pushing back with a traditional tool – infiltration. Across the country, Occupies are struggling with disruption and division, attacks on key persons, escalation of tactics to property damage and police conflict as well as misuse of websites and social media.
As Part II of this discussion will show, infiltration is the norm in political movements in the United States. Occupy has many opponents likely to infiltrate to divide and destroy it beyond the usual law enforcement apparatus. Others include the corporations whose rule Occupy seeks to end, conservative right wing groups allied with corporate interests and other members of the power structure including non-profit organizations allied with either corporate-funded political party, especially the Democratic Party which would like Occupy to be their Tea Party rather than an independent movement critical of both parties.
On the very first day of the Occupation of Wall Street, we saw infiltration by the police. We were leaving Zuccotti Park and were stopped in traffic by the rear of the park. We saw an unmarked van open, in the front seat were two uniformed police and out of the back came two men dressed as occupiers wearing backpacks, sweatshirts, and jeans. They walked into Zuccotti Park and became part of the crowd.
In the first week of the Occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC we saw the impact of two right wing infiltrators. A peaceful protest was planned at the drone exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. The plan was for a banner drop and a die-in under the drones. But, as protesters arrived at the museum two people ran out in front, threatening the security guards and causing them to pepper spray protesters and tourists. Patrick Howley, an assistant editor for the American Spectator, wrote a column bragging about his role as an agent provocateur. A few days later we uncovered the second infiltrator when he was urging people on Freedom Plaza to resist police with force.
There have been a handful of other reports around the country of infiltration. In Oakland, CopWatch filmed an Oakland police officer infiltrating. And, in another video CopWatch includes audio tape of an Oakland police chief, Howard Jordan, talking about how police departments all over the country infiltrate, not just to monitor protesters but to manipulate and direct them.
There were also reports in Los Angeles of a dozen undercover police in the encampment before they were forcibly evicted by the police. The raid by the LA police was brutal and resulted in mass arrests, with most charges dropped, but with others mistreated in jails. Similar pre-raid undercover activities were reported in Nashville, Tennessee.
Los Angeles also had infiltrators from the right wing group, Free Republic. They posted on their webpage a call for infiltrators to block a vote concerning an offer from the City of Los Angeles for virtually free space for Occupy LA: “Need LA Freepers to show up to block this vote by the Occupy LA General Assembly. How brave are you?” In the end, the LA occupy decided not to accept the offer from the city, something also opposed by other elements in the encampment.
In New York, there were reports of infiltration. For example, a protester described how undercover police infiltrated a protest at Citibank and were the loudest and most disruptive protesters. Later at the station listening to the police the protester said in an interview: “It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.”
Survey and Interviews of Occupiers Shows Common Tactics, Common Infiltrators
These scattered reports seem to be the tip of the iceberg. As a result of experiencing extreme divisive tactics and character assassination on Freedom Plaza against us we began to hear from occupiers across the country about similar incidents in their occupations. We decided to speak to and survey people about infiltration and have found similar stories around the country.
Recently we toured occupations on the west coast, where we spoke to many occupiers and have attended General Assemblies at Occupy Wall Street and Philadelphia. We heard stories in Arizona of someone with website administrative privileges deleting the live stream archive which included video that was to be used in defense of some who were arrested. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania someone took control of the email list, making it an announce-only list and when the police threatened to close the camp, that person put out a statement that the Lancaster occupiers had decided to go without any conflict. In fact, no such decision had been made and 30 occupiers had planned to risk arrest when the police tried to remove them. The false email resulted in no resistance.
Our west coast trip ended at the Occupy Olympia Solidarity Social Forum. We were able to survey 41 people representing 15 different occupations primarily on the west coast but including Missoula, MT and New Orleans, LA. Participants were questioned about 10 different behaviors. The most common behaviors, seen in roughly two-thirds of those surveyed and covering 12 of the 15 occupations, were:
- Disruptions of the General Assemblies and attempts to divide the group: Individuals would interrupt General Assemblies with emergency items or sidetrack the agenda with their personal needs or issues. When proposals were presented to the General Assembly on principles for the occupation or plans to prevent division, individuals would question the authority of the writers of the proposal, launch personal attacks or question their abilities. There were frequent attacks on people who did the most work and were perceived as leaders. The anti-leadership views of many occupiers were used to essentially attack the most effective people. Sue Basko wrote about this in Los Angeles in a comment on a Chris Hedges article, writing that there was an “ongoing campaign of harassment and coercion against the Occupy LA participants and volunteers. Each day is a fresh set of victims.” She describes the use of Twitter, list serves and blogs to “defame and harass anyone giving their efforts to help Occupy LA.” This has included attacks on “social media workers, the website team, the lawyers (including me), the medics, the livestreamers, the writers, and on and on.” She also writes “there is the very strong belief that some among them are FBI or DHS agents placed there to start the group, egg it on, control it.” Conversations with others in Los Angles confirmed this report. Our experience in the area of personal attacks included outlandish lies calling us criminals and thieves and near daily email attacks since early December. We found that when we respond and correct lies, it does not stop them and have concluded that if someone has the intention to be a character assassin there is nothing you can do to stop them except to expose them. While that does not necessarily stop them, it at least gets those in the occupation who are not gullible to doubt the undocumented personal attacks.
- Individuals who took over the website and/or social media and then removed them or hacked them and took control: As noted above, these networks have been used in personal attacks, as well as to send inaccurate messages to the media and other occupiers. One mistake made is to allow a large number of people to have administrative privileges on the website. Being an administrator allows people to erase critical information as occurred in Phoenix. In Washington, DC we have been removed as administrators of a Facebook page we created because we allowed people who turned out to be untrustworthy to have administrative privileges. Note, people can blog or post to Facebook or websites without being administrators.
Division over how money was being spent was an issue reported by 50% of respondents and in 12 out of 15 occupations, individuals persistently questioned transparency and use of funds. In General Assemblies in New York and Philadelphia we saw disruption by people who complained about money issues. In New York, an argument about access to free Metro Cards resulted in a 30 minute argument. In Philadelphia, it was a vague complaint about “where is the money?” We saw something similar at a 99%’s meeting in San Francisco where one of the questioners complained about missing money. And, we have seen the same in Washington, DC with false accusations of missing money. Sometimes these disruptors seem like homeless or emotionally disturbed individuals. They could be acting out their concerns or they could be encouraged by police to attend meetings to cause disruption and could be paid a small amount to do so. Whether paid or not, the impact is the same – it takes the Occupy off of its political agenda and turns people off to participating in the movement.
Finally, the issue of escalation of tactics to include property damage and conflict with police: The euphemism for this is “diversity of tactics.” In fact, there is great diversity within nonviolent tactics. This is really a debate between those who favor strategic nonviolence and those who favor property destruction and police conflict. In 11 of 15 occupations there were reports of verbal attacks on police and/or escalation of tactics from nonviolence to property destruction or violence. In one occupation, an individual took over the direct action working group and escalated the tactics used beyond what the group had agreed upon. In one occupy, the GA approved putting up a structure but agreed that if the police wanted it taken down they would promptly do so in order to prove the structure was temporary. When the structure was up, a handful of people refused to take it down causing a 10 hour police conflict and undermining public support for the occupy. In another occupation, because a minority of the occupy refused to adopt nonviolent strategies, a protest with the teacher union was cancelled preventing a major opportunity to expand the movement. When it comes to the issue of violence vs. property damage, it is particularly hard to tell whether the differences are political or instigated by infiltrators.
Participants were asked about attempts at co-optation by law enforcement, individuals or organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party and about suspected infiltration by right wing groups: 8 of the 15 occupations (41% of respondents) reported Democratic groups attempted to co-opt the occupation, using it to push or prevent a legislative agenda or using the occupation’s social media to change the times of protests or meetings. Far fewer reported suspicion or evidence of right wing infiltration (12% of respondents in four occupations), most stating that the corporate media provided poor or misleading coverage. The most common form of infiltration was by law enforcement agencies (49% of respondents; 11 of 15 occupations). Some respondents reported having video evidence, some reported law enforcement officers having more information than they had been given, police using names of occupiers when names had never been provided and some suspected police infiltration but had no proof.
Of course, there is a lot of suspicion, but people are rarely able to prove infiltration. These incidents could be people with real political disagreement within the Occupy, or they could be people who are emotionally disturbed, mentally ill or who bring other personal challenges with them. Or, it could be an infiltrator manipulating these people, playing on their fears and prejudices. This is not a simple issue, as we will discuss in Part II, it is best to judge people by their actions and not label them as infiltrators without direct proof.
Some may wonder why Democrats or groups closely affiliated with the Democrats like MoveOn, Campaign for America’s Future, Rebuild the Dream or unions like SEIU would want to infiltrate the Occupy (note: individuals who are Democrats, union, MoveOn or members of other groups are not the same as the leadership). Essentially, leaders of these groups see Occupy as the Democrats’ potential answer to the Tea Party. Occupiers do not see themselves that way, but these groups want the Occupy to adopt their strategy of working within the Democratic Party. In one example, Eric Lottke, a senior policy analyst for SEIU who has been involved in Occupy DC, appeared on a radio show with two other occupiers from Occupy Washington, DC and Occupy Oakland. Lottke said he was speaking as an occupier from Occupy DC and talked about ‘taking back Congress in 2012′, the need for an electoral strategy and gave the usual Democrat rhetoric about Obama needing more time. The two other guests said Lottke was completely out of step with most Occupiers who say we should not focus on electoral politics but instead should build an independent movement to challenge the corrupt system. We doubt the Occupy DC General Assembly agreed with Lottke’s pro-Democratic Party, pro-Obama views but Lottke had positioned himself to speak for them. Van Jones of Rebuild the Dream similarly was appearing in the media as if he were an occupy spokesperson claiming there will be 2000 “99% candidates” in 2012; again trying to push Occupy into Democratic electoral politics. These are just two examples of many Democratic Party operatives trying to send Occupy into Democratic Party politics despite the movement consistently describing itself as independent and non-electoral.
In Washington, DC we have seen some occupiers attacking the National Occupation of Washington, DC (www.NOWDC.org) scheduled for this April, while other occupiers have shown enthusiasm for it. Solidarity with NOW DC has been shown by 19 General Assemblies of occupations from around the country. InterOccupy classifies it as a national Occupy event. The attackers have been criticizing NOW DC by attacking the authors of this article. This attack is occurring at the same time that Democratic Party aligned groups have announced their own project which occurs at the same time as NOW DC, the “99%’s Spring.” Thus far the dividers have succeeded in preventing solidarity from the two DC occupations with the rest of the Occupy Movement. Is the timing a coincidence?
No doubt the information in this article is incomplete. We have only been able to survey and talk with people at about 20 occupies. We would very much like to hear from others around the country about experiences at their occupation as understanding these tactics is the first step to confronting and addressing them. (Send your comments to research@october2011.org.)
In Part II of this series we will focus on the history of government infiltration and destruction of political movements and political leaders and will examine steps that can be taken to minimize the damage from these tactics. One thing evident from the history: infiltration has been common in political movements for a century and the tactics of division, attacks on leaders, escalation of tactics, fights over money and misinformation to the public are common throughout that history.
Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters For Peace and serves on the steering committees of WikiLeaksIsDemocracy.org and the Bradley Manning Support Network.
Margaret Flowers MD, is a pediatrician who serves as the Congressional Fellow for Physicians for National Health Program.
Conclusions:
We all need to be experts in everything. We all need to learn how to construct a good argument. We all need to learn to lead, and to follow. We all must learn to press the cutting edge of available communications technique, and become comfortable always being on both sides of the camera.
!! Film, publish, archive, and back up, everything!!!
!!! Do not allow a single person to control the message!!! yet do not allow everyone to!! -> ??
Do not let money become a divisive corrosive issue.
Solutions must be found to allow distributed control of finances and telecom, currently, some promising work is being done on more user friendly ad-hoc wireless mesh networks based on users’ handheld mobile devices (making our com devices able to host their own server/relay backbone for our own network – of course, these would still be susceptible to jamming countermeasures equipment).
Remember, the means cannot be separated from the ends, the ends are the means.
Have no solo responsibilities. Cross train everyone all the time. Resist divisive accusations by ignoring them. Seek first and foremost consent of the super-super-majority. Pay attention. Ignore those who use personal attacks, wild gesticulating, yelling, and other irrelevant methods to avoid reasoned debate. Know, study, and learn to think like, your enemies, and your friends. Be clear and very public about objectives, means, and ends. Expose the internal opposition’s logic, never attack their personality. Seek first and foremost what is most widely agreed upon rather than what is absolutely right, correct, or perfect. Don’t debate ideology, if you can’t make your case without it you will not achieve consensual relations. Don’t plan or do anything you would not be proud of. Respect the time of your fellows and they will be more respectful of your time.
Revere and cherish Love, Respect each other, these remain the crucial answers.
Flag This Post as unnecessarily Divisive
Flag This Comment as an Argumentum Ad Hominem.
Green Party US Platform Amendments
(navigation at top of page).
Grassroots Protesting 101
02 October 2009
Protest Everything with an Aggressive Threatening Demeanor!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/250815/thu-october-1-2009-joy-behar
In the middle segment, John Oliver gets advice for G20 protests from tea baggers.
Very funny, very effective, very surreal, highly recommended.
Click the 2nd white hash mark on the blue line at the bottom of vid to skip right to it.
Sums up all you really need to know about grassroots protesting in 2009
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/250815/thu-october-1-2009-joy-behar
How It All Ends
Watch ‘How It All Ends’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg
It’s about making big decisions into simple ones; not about whether the globe is warming,
much less why, it’s about doing nothing, or not.
An excellent science teacher avoids all the science to look at the simplest logic.
Get Rev Billy Talen on Bill Maher
17 September 2009
Check out Green Change if you haven’t already,
and the same with Rev Billy Talen, running for Mayor of NYC
Otherwise, this just seemed a most worthy effort to me,
‘twould be Awesometagious!
http://www.youtube.com/user/reverendbillytalen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Billy_and_the_Church_of_Stop_Shopping
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rev-Billy-Talen/52676562761
not too hard to do, no down side, could be a great meeting of minds,
not to mention the possibility of completely hilarious results.
Rev Billy’s street theater background should match even Maher’s extemporaneous wit
Joan Baez and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir
http://www.greenchange.org//article.php?id=4781
monte letourneau
WIGP CC, GPUS NC Delegate
http://montesite.net
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Marnie Glickman <marnie@greenchange.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 11:28 PM
Subject: [usgp-dx] Get Rev. Billy Talen on Bill Maher
To: USGP Discussion
Dear Green friends,
I don’t watch TV. And I don’t own one. But there is a TV host I’m hearing a few good things about — Bill Maher.
In June, Bill Maher asked, “Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health care — legalizing pot — and steep, direct taxing of polluters?… what we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats.”
Let’s introduce Bill Maher — and his national audience — to Reverend Billy Talen, the Green Party candidate for mayor of New York City.
Rev. Billy is an eloquent spokesperson for the Green movement. He’s smart, dynamic and hilarious too.
Will you ask Real Time with Bill Maher to have Rev. Billy on the show?
http://bit.ly/getrevbillyontv
Rev. Billy just turned in more than 18,000 signatures to earn a spot on this November’s ballot to run against the “billionaire mayor,” Mike Bloomberg.
Can you help Rev. Billy spread his message that we need Green solutions to create vibrant, diverse neighborhoods?
Yes, I want Green voices in the media – I’ll contact Real Time With Bill Maher today!
http://bit.ly/getrevbillyontv
Thanks for your help. Remember, it’s up to us!
Peace,
Marnie Glickman
Proud VoteRevBilly volunteer and donor
Green Party Annual National Meeting Goes Livestream
23 July 2009
2009 Annual National Meeting in Durham, North Carolina; all times are Eastern Standard
http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
Going live again starting @ 9:00 AM Jul 24, at this posting the channel is revisiting streams
from the last year or so.
Live broadcast started today around 1:30 PM Jul 23 from Durham NC,
and went quite well for an unrehearsed roll out by mostly complete noobs.
Today there was more foreground discussion of technical difficulty than there was technical difficulty,
but i expect that will improve greatly tomorrow. Starlene Rankin, Craig Seeman,
and several others did a fine job showing just how easy it could be to make it work
despite not having done it before.
Over the weekend there will be speeches, workshops, and forums:
On Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm, Cynthia McKinney will speak about her recent efforts,
with the Free Gaza Movement and Viva Palestina, to bring medical and other supplies to Gaza
in the wake of Israel’s brutal invasion.
Ms. McKinney and other Free Gaza human rights activists were aboard the Spirit of Humanity
when it was seized by Israeli gunboats.
The ‘Free Gaza 21,’ including Ms. McKinney, were held in a prison in Ramla,
Israel, until their release last week http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=234;
The Green Party will present a public forum on the need for a single-Payer health care
funding system on Friday, July 24 from 3:30-4:30 pm
http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=236;
Green candidates and officeholders will be speaking, like former Green Party presidential candidate
Jesse Johnson, who will be presenting a film “Coal Country” addressing the horrors
of mountaintop removal in coal mining.
Go to http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus, and stay tuned in all weekend!
More at gp.org, http://www.ncgreenparty.org/2009-ANM.html,
& http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=234
Workshops detailed @ http://www.ncgreenparty.org/2009-ANM%20WORKSHOPS.html
Some of us already have high hopes that this will lead to a more open, inclusive,
and transparent future for the GPUS, and that other nationals and state parties will follow
the lead to broadcast internationally once it’s simplicity and effectiveness are shown.
If you get bored waiting for the cameras and action to move from location to location
read the new issue of Green Pages, the official publication of record of the Green Party
of the United States, while you wait @ Green Pages, Vol. 13, No. 1 – http://gp.org/greenpages-blog
Get the real story, delete the middleman, make your own new!
Call Out For State Platform Liaisons & Reporting In For All Who May Already Be, Or Be Willing to Be, Liaison
27 January 2010
With our new two year cycle it will soon be time to address new proposals that are too late for the Feb 15th deadline.
Next year we will be accepting new proposals,
So state parties have only one year left to do a good job proposing amendments for next cycle.
Even with this deadline so close, it is still more important to me to build a list of state liaisons.
Liaisons will contact and list those interested in helping write or amend amendment proposals,
so that proposals can be brought to the table, and negotiated, in a more timely and effective way next cycle.
We need at least one member in each state party to be PlatCom Liaison
[each member state must have at least one "delegate" to the Platform amendment process in order to be effectively represented
(representation of a caucus, committee, or non member state, is at the very least available through a supportive member state)].
Liaisons will need to keep record of those interested in drafting proposals from their state
and those with authoritative experience consulted by the state party,
shepherd the proposal through the process,
and negotiate in behalf of their state’s proposals.
The only requirement for a liaison is
that the state party find a way to trust them with it’s representation
and interest them in the work.
We are working now to identify which states still need liaisons, and to list those who are liaisons,
so we can help individuals with an interest to find out who they need to be working with.
If you or someone you know has an interest in drafting a proposal and do not know your liaison,
it is at this point likely it should be you.
By the end of 2010 every NC delegate, state steering person, and person interested in amending the Platform,
should know who their state liaison(s) is.
Becoming, or finding, a liaison is more important than proposing an amendment, at least for this cycle.
I expect to focus my efforts on this for the rest of this cycle,
So it seems I am your “go to” for any questions, names, or ideas (@ geanark@gmail.com ).
In only one year we will already be open for submissions again.
This cycle our schedule is compressed, and there is not much time for each step.
Next year the process will be open to input for a much longer time.
Hopefully next time some amendment proposals and liaison infrastructure will be ready ahead of time,
and we then can have some real fun hammering out, in a more widely participated in environment,
an even more awesomer document for the POTUS delegates to vote on.
If you are under the impression you may be your state’s go to on platform proposals,
or if you think you know who it should be, please contact me, (@ geanark@gmail.com ),
or someone like Holly Hart, also on the committee, who can fwd you to me.
As soon we get a preliminary list it will go up on PlatCom’s site somewhere prominent i’m sure.
Please help put this call out to your state party members whenever possible.
in service, monte letourneau – WIGP CC, GPUS NC Delegate
also@http://montesite.net & http://geanark.posterous.com/
Global Greens statement on Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
For Immediate Release:
Friday, May 28, 2010
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org
Global Greens statement on Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus, possible first Green Party head of state
• Colombian election day is May 30; polls have placed Mockus in the lead
• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on foreign policy http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-foreign-policy.php
• The US Green Party’s 2010 Annual National Meeting, Detroit, Michigan, June 24-27 http://greenpartymeeting2010.wordpress.com
Media credentialing page: http://www.gp.org/forms/media
More information: 1-866-41-GREEN, office@gp.org
WASHINGTON, DC — Global Greens Coordination has issued a statement on the possible victory of Green Party Antanas Mockus in the upcoming Colombian presidential election on Sunday, May 30. Polls have shown Mr. Mockus leading in his race against Juan Manuel Santos of the ruling ‘U’ Party.
If elected, Mr. Mockus will become the first Green head of state. The Global Greens statement is appended below and can also be read online at the Global Greens web site in English (http://www.globalgreens.org/statements/colombia_pre_election) and Spanish (http://www.globalgreens.org/statements/colombia_ante_elecion).
The first round of the elections will take place on May 30, with a runoff election on the June 20 if no candidate achieves a majority.
The Global Greens Coordination ((http://www.globalgreens.org/ggc/ggc_homepage) is the coordinating body of the Global Greens, representing more than 80 green parties from around the world. The Green Party of the United States is a participating member.
See also: “In praise of… Antanas Mockus: This Sunday Colombians may do something extraordinary: elect the world’s first Green party head of state,” editorial in The Guardian, May 28, 2010 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/28/in-praise-of-antanas-mockus).
Greens worldwide celebrated a victory earlier in May, when Caroline Lucas became the first Green Party member ever elected to Parliament in the United Kingdom, representing Brighton Pavilion.
* * *
Declaration of the Global Green Coordination regarding the presidential election campaign of the Colombian Green Party and its candidate Antanas Mockus
The Global Green Coordination representing more than 80 green parties from around the world, greets the surging campaign for the upcoming presidential elections being conducted by the Colombian Green Party and its candidate Antanas Mockus. The spectacular support they are receiving opens a completely new and promising perspective for this country, delivering hope to overcome the dominating violence, corruption and social injustice. We call on the Colombian electorate to vote for Antanas Mockus and the proposals of the Colombian Green Party.
Antanas Mockus as President would mean putting an end to the eight years of the Uribe government, marked by failure to respect the constitution, stressing often a militaristic approach to resolve conflicts, contributing to intensify regional tensions, tolerating a high level of corruption and the maintenance of an unacceptable level of poverty despite the economic growth achieved by the country.
The election of Antanas Mockus would open the possibility of setting a new course based on moderation, strict enforcement of the constitution, citizen’s participation, honesty, respect for human rights, job creation and the emergence of new opportunities for young people including a determined effort to improve the education system, which is a key to the future of the country. At the same time, electing Antanas Mockus would help to relegate to the past the artificial tensions which have characterized relations between Colombia and neighboring countries in recent years.
Greens worldwide will be following closely this electoral process and will put pressure on the institutions in which we are represented as well as on the governments of our countries in order to ensure that the democratic and honest nature of the electoral contest is fully respected by the Colombian Government. We hope that all parties refrain from the temptation to manipulate or violate the free and democratic elections that the country deserves. These elections can and should become a model of democracy and an example for everyone.
Once again we would like to call the people of this great country of Colombia to support the perspective that Antanas Mockus and the Green Party are offering to the voters: his proposals open the way to a better future for all Colombians and a unique chance for peace and hope.
The members of the Global Green Coordination
Note: The first round of the Colombian presidential elections will be on 30 May, with a runoff election on the 20 June if no candidate gains a majority. For more information about the Green Party in Colombia: http://www.partidoverde.org.co (Español).
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
• Green candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections
• Green Party Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
International Committee of the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org/committees/intl
The Green Party’s 2010 Annual National Meeting, Detroit, Michigan, June 24-27 http://greenpartymeeting2010.wordpress.com
Media credentialing page: http://www.gp.org/forms/media
More information: 1-866-41-GREEN, office@gp.org
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Winter 2010 issue now online
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog
Seeking Better E Spaces For Feathers Passed Around Campfires Type Consensus Seeking
Currently i still feel many of us are “talking” past each other,
but we are consistently increasingly on the same page.
I still have a sense that the vast majority of the GPUS basically agrees on how to do things,
down to the content of the platform by and large,
and trust that the NC will find a way to articulate that in voting for good proposals.
As i have come to see the GPUS NC, as it currently is, as un-poll-able,
excepting putting a proposal in que for formal vote,
i come increasingly to believe many votes should fail,
and many more should be tuned up and brought back around frequently,
in one form or another, until we have found something
approaching (albeit barely) optimum.
Unfortunately, in a personal sense i seldom vote against the imperfect,
and prefer to vote for what i believe is considered near consensus.
The rise of hierarchy is due to the fact
that consensus does not work well on the battlefield.
In this era the battlefield is an electronic one,
supporting broad consensus and more diverse and distributed visions and decisions.
Electronic means can bring the responsiveness of hierarchy to consensual decision making.
We can build the tools to embody such self governance in GPUS bodies,
we can proof them out and graft them onto US “democracy” as law,
when it gets us elected…
While we do, the corps(es) will be building similar toolage,
people will more frequently expect to join in governance council,
in the “private” sphere.
None of this will change the core dynamic of consensus.
No matter who he is, or what he has done,
Sitting Bull must still go sit for days at the fire of Red Cloud’s clan
many times before he is ready to call for Grand Council.
One must work out the issues between one’s clan and any others,
and eliminate faction and discord in the nation,
then find the favored plan and means of major clans and elders,
then work to forge a plan that all can consent to.
Then one goes to council with one’s nation.
Lacking leisurely time to react to the changes we have wrought,
we at this point can only be jealous of the ancient practices,
before kings, priests, soldiers, and guns.
Telephones, TV, Radio, the papers,
we have become inured to the idea that mass media
is either one on one, or one to many.
The email list is no camp fire, we must find better ways,
but until we do, any elder must still go to the camp of his competitor,
and find a way to caress his ear with what he wants to hear.
However, we do increasingly have the means to create the electronic clan fire,
and we do not have much time to do it.
We all know this, but as individuals we all keep forgetting.
The process as we have come to expect it is unwieldy,
and we are far from helpless to fix it.
Until then, patience will remain it’s own reward in these matters.
Academic Portfolio Assignment
490 — Senior Capstone BS-IR SOIS
As a graduating student, you are to construct a portfolio. Your portfolio should include 5-7 double-spaced pages (Does not include title page, table of content, and bibliography). The primary audience for your portfolio is your 490 professor. Below is the direction.
1) Title page and Annotated Table of Contents.
The title page should include your name, major, email address and date of submission. The Table of Contents should communicate careful and logical organization and enable readers to find materials easily.
2) List of all courses you have taken/are currently taking.
This should be organized in the following manner:
Area I: UWM Distribution Requirements — General Education
Area II: BSIR Core Courses
Area III: BSIR Cross-functional Electives
Area IV: General Electives, including Cognate Areas of Study
3) You as a learner
Using specific details and with reference to a variety of texts and experiences, you are to examine your educational experience as a college student and to create a meaningful statement of your learning. In particular you are asked to discuss how your learning is integrative and to discuss work in your concentration.
In this section you need to address these questions:
(1) how have you developed as a learner/thinker;
(2) What have you learned in BSIR major; and
(3) how has your experience been integrative (Integrative: What connections or contrasts have you found among and between ideas and experiences in your learning communities, courses, and experiential learning, etc.?)
4) Discuss competencies pertinent to your BSIR major and/or experience
You are to select 4 competencies that are especially important to you. Define each competency and explain how the competency is relevant to your major or experience. You may want to discuss some of the specific skills and abilities that make up each competency.
5) Future directions
This section should include the following components:
(1) a statement of approximately 2 paragraphs explaining your degree program in integrative studies.
(2) Your updated resume, carefully written and designed, accompanied by a brief statement explaining the target audience for which you have shaped this particular version of your resume.
(3) Statement of career and personal goals as you see them currently.
(4) Future learning in a competency area. Questions you might consider:
((A) What are some of your learning goals, short-term and longer-term?
((B) What are your current goals for graduate school or career?
((C) What are some personal goals (for example, goals connected to travel or to competencies such as effective citizenship, global perspective or valuing)?
6) Bibliography
In your essays, you will need to refer specifically to sources such as books, journal articles, lecture notes, etc. Please be sure to cite these in appropriate format.
About the BS in Information Resources at SOIS UWM
To understand the Information Resources program at the UWM School of Information Science one must first understand the ‘word’ meta in both it’s broadest and narrowest senses.
UWM School of Library and Information Science Home
BSIR at UWM SOIS Home
A participant in the BSIR program is expected to have a relatively good expertise with many WinXP productivity and collaboration programs, and often various methods of online access from the classroom to resources, or to class resources from home, were required competancies.
To make good use of the BSIR program one will understand that in our evolving information economy, meta-knowledge, about how to find organize, and use, data, to obtain information that can foster more and better knowledge, is a powerful engine of productivity. Using such meta-knowledge to multiply such meta-knowledge by organizing, improving, and sharing it, leverages multiple strong levers of positive socioeconomic and technologia methodology trends to increase the positive feedback among them. The potential of these factors to encourage, and depend upon, more horizontal decision making, and sharing of infomation, resources, and tasks, increases the power of the positive feedback already working to strengthen all these trends and tie them tighter together to cement a more positive sustainable future.
These are some of many possible examples of important meta-knowledge embedded in my BSIR program.
There is a focus on finding, evaluating, and increasing the value of information resources, especially through organizing, sharing, and automation of, information resources. Another focus to pursue these same aims is meta-data, the methodology of the technology of tagging and markup, a core set of skills for organizing and structuring electronic information resources. The things that most attracted me at first were the focus on research, the use, and administration of, libraries, an interdisciplinary approach to web technologies, and the encouragement for customization of one’s curriculum.
One of the main lessons I take from my studies in BSIR at UWM, is about culture. About how different cultural concepts of what define success, competance, and function, what is means and end, and how vertical an expectation of hierarchy one has, create deep divisions among organizational structures and create barriers to production and sharing of the technical means. These are much harder to bridge today than traditional cultural divisions based on language, nation, race, creed, or configuration. In other words, languges divide Daimler/Chrystler much less than the cultural gap between speakers of managerial, sales, and engineering terminologies.
One must train in all fields to counter this, there must be information workers, knowledge workers, and cultural workers, who are working on cohesion, unifiing or diverging fields of seeking, understanding, and acting. I seem destined to try to accomplish all three approaches to the most meta of understandings and skills. This was the perfect degree for today’s renascence being. Especially so for myself, as i am convinced that better sharing our heritage of information, knowledge, habit, and other such important cultural toolage, is the pathway to a sane sustainable future.
For Those Who Find Climate Hoax Theory Too Complicated:
From http://io9.com/environment/
Monte & Geanark Spaces; Focus
18 September 2011
Allness Is Being
My Logos Animated
DIY Website Assist
WordPress Sandbox
Joomla Sandbox
Artisteer Word Press Themes
Web Portfolio
Original Art
My Feeds
…
My Facebook Profile
My Twitter Feed
Posterous Blogging MultiTool
My LinkedIn Profile
MySpace Profile
…
Infospheric Reviscerator
Geanark @ LiveJournal
Pandora Radio Sharing
Playlist Sharing
My YouTube
Automate Imaginary Overlords Out of a Job
My GreenChange Profile
My Care2 Profile
Warriors for Wisdom – Real Life Heroes
Skillet – Hero
Naomi Wolf on the Dangers of ‘Fake’ Protests
From the, no, you can’t have my rights, I’m still using them files.
Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962.
Not splitting hairs here, if you think otherwise, you’re simply missing the obvious (picture a shotgun barrel in the face).
http://naomiwolf.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
Naomi Wolf – The End of America – Full Length HQ Film 1:14:33
Priorities
Chicken wire and fence posts
Plywood or OSB
Totes, bins
Shelving
Translucent corrugated fiberglass
Greenhouse plastic sheeting
Good video camera
Guinea hens, pair of ducks
Shingles
Any material for building more 2′+ tall raised beds (sand bags?, timbers, lumber)
Soaker hoses
50+ gallon containers for water and/or rotating compost and/or aquaculture and/or thermal mass: barrels, drums, tubs, leaky propane tanks, et cetera
Water pumps (small – mid size)
RAM memory
Water hoses and manifolds
Window fans
Old radiators, and/or metal pipe and fittings
Clay for pond liner(s)
Backyard lumber mill
Truck
Massive compost input
Wood chipper
Solar panels or wind power
High resolution flat screen monitor(s)
3D printer
Small tractor
Concrete (& jacking for levelling house)
1,000+ clear 2 litre bottles
Gravel
Straw or hay
Bricks or blocks
Clay for pond liner(s)
Backyard lumber mill
Truck
Massive compost input
Wood chipper
Solar panels or wind power
High resolution flat screen monitor(s)
3D printer
Small tractor
“Sent A strong Message” – Serfs’ New Clothes
“No one can dispute the strong message sent to Governor Walker” Says Obama.
Check out this graph of the strongest message sent, money.
http://geanark.posterous.com/strong-message-sent-to-governor-walker-says-o
Also said by Tom Barrett, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tripp Wellde, ?
and who knows how many others?
The conservative glee over this choice of words drowned out the signal.
How much you wanna bet? says I.
Search “sent a strong message” on Twitter, at least half of you will get a big charge out of it.
My favorite: said Napolean of Wellington, at Waterloo.
30 mill to under 4, and I deeply hope we all know which way it skews.
~20 mill came from out of state for one, ~1 mill for the other.
Time to wake up nation? Dems, Repubs, are you in there?
So how come Obama’s war chest is the biggest one ever,
but Tom get’s 1$ in 20, and no presidential support,
while Obama flew over the state two days before?
Tom conceeds while people wait to vote in city streets?
beginning the end for the middle class war,
really helping build momentum for Obama’s defeat?
Then says, clearly, in a chorus, “sent a strong message”.
A chorus drowned in laughter, and soon forgotten.
PEW: 2012 American Values Survey – Partisan Divide Reaches New High
At this article on the PEW survey, there are comments from former R’s & Ds who are fed up.
Most of them want to vote for “the other” party, seeing no other recourse.
That’ll definitely “send a strong message”.
Gallup: In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins
32% says God guides evolution – that’s the part that scares me.
“the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others”
It means we all think everyone knows what we know, but they don’t.
The Green New Deal
The solutions are simple, if you just put all the right pieces together.
Money out of politics is the most important fulcrum,
to finding the balence between extinction and civil war.
Are you are sick of voting for rival bank accounts yet?
Try a party that refuses corporate money – gp.org
This is not academic forensics, this is not a love fest, it is all out class war, and if I have to tell you who is losing their shirt, it is probably you.
The serf is wearing new clothes.
They are of the finest silk money can buy,
in the loosest yet most refined weave.
Best of all, they are miraculously invisible.
Automate Management and Ownership Out of a Job!
17 February 2010
In my lifetime, the precarity, or desperateness, of people’s lives,
has grown, enormously, continuously, and alarmingly!
While the educated, information society, is ever more rewarded,
efficient, and luxurious, the vast majority are left out.
As of the late 1980′s, more than half of all people ever alive are living now.
That the vast majority of us are living on the edge of desperation,
or in deep desperation, as of mid first decade of the third millennium,
means we are faced with a world, where advancing technology has enabled anyone to live like royalty,
while enforcing a society where the majority, of all humans ever having lived,
are currently either starving to death, in grave danger of doing so, or worse.
Yet this technologia could engender an economy that could support most of us
in a style, that, still, very few have ever experienced.
We collectively have graver and graver impacts on our environments’
capacity to sustain us.
as a result of our individual desperate behaviors, we endanger all,
especially those who are not economically, and/or informationally, well endowed.
We must endeavor to reduce the general level of desperation among the masses,
else, even the rich will not be sustained.
The economic and information resources must not only no longer be
used against the interests of individuals, be put at the uses of the masses.
All individuals must learn to act less desperate,to spare what they can spare,
without suffering for loss, like info, pleasant labor, attention, and love.
None should not be well enough off to spare these things, for indeed,
not sharing these things is itself loss, one we all share,
not just the individuals denied.
All should be given their share of what our forbearers have handed down to us all.
the artistry, and knowledge of our predecessors should be available to all to mix,
and remix, and re-envision.
This is the only way back to an expanding economy,
over the hump of earths population limits and our increasing disparity.
Corporations are just the most powerful of such individual actors, not the best organized;
governments and other organizations are routinely,
like corporations, programmed to act desperately,
and to produce more desperation among others in so doing.
Wither goes our party on this path? How desperate are we?
Better, more human, communication, information, education,
and knowledge management,
allow us to fully share the most powerful resources
we have ever had, information, and the knowledge to use it with wisdom.
Humanity, and many other species, are badly losing the class war,
to the point of threatened, virtual, or real, extinction!
to our cultural toolage?
Our technology has been used to create an Earth,
where the majority of humans, who ever lived,
can only wish they had the freedoms and luxuries
of the tribal hunter gatherer life.
From most, the land, resources on and in it, tribal political power,
the heritage of passed down human imagination and experience,
even the control, use, and benefit, of their own labor and information,
have all essentially been removed.
For most, a hunter/gatherer life seems palatial for it is,
compared to squatting in a land”fill”;
more control, sustainability, nutrition, resource redundancy, other securities,
more luxuries, time, and space, and freedom.
The limitations of neighboring tribes seem like a small cost, the dangers,
even of tribal war, are a small price when compared to modern war’s costs,
or to working in a sweat shop to poison yourself and your land,
to work yourself to the bone to create a useless luxury product,
for wages that could never cover the cost of the useful thing,
the luxury good is a bad imitation of.
To poison the air? or to be?
a more desperate choice,even, than kill or be killed,
more stressful, less rewarding if successful, more lethal if not.
makes tribal warfare look like fun!
Tell someone feeling that desperate to preserve our environment,
there is only one answer, it is simple a question.
how do I survive?
This question more of us should be ready for a good answer to.
Even among those who fare better, many are so stressed out,
they spend many resources and much time, trying to get hurt with panache,
in desperate sporting extremes.
The threat of our own extinction becomes the most likely prospect
of our superior ability to adapt to, and master, threats?
i don’t think so…
What kind of human nature, or rationale, is that?
none at all!
Once the people seize the festival/party leadership,
first the lobbyists, then the politicians,
then the lawyers, cops, and soldiers,
may all be replaced,
then we will automate management and ownership out of their jobs
(they’ll beat us to it, you know they will;
then it’s just a legal change of ownership away).
At which point it will be time to sit the engineers down,
and retrain them to engineer for user usability and user desires.
Then sit the users down, retrain them for co-design of their own lives,
and resource management, the fun, easy,
joomla way.
The dTao be much more earnestly sought,
and the way to being fully human well shown,
in a world of animal, eventually vegetale, peoples.
Gia’s new brain will wake up,
within years heaven on earth, lamb lies down with lion.
the new religion, respect your place, and all others, in the Allness.
the new technologies will enable same.
to get there, we will automate management,
ownership, even visionaries, out of work.
no longer a job, the shared joy of striving to better our collective individual lives.
to preserve and embody the Earth’s behavioral and genetic information,
creating the beauty of her lifeways, expanding and diversifying them, protecting life,
the duty and pleasure of all.
but more than before, faster, more beautifully, more safely.
not ever less so.
every life will be secure, soon after, eternal.
the record will preserve you,
you will be completely, and the record will record it completely,
the record will be you, you will be the record,
the record will be backed up, copied, distributed.
immortal
virtual immortality for some imaginary social construct machinery
will transform into real immortality for all Her creatures.
we all know the technical side of immortality is almost worked out.
even now, we have much farther than that to go to build a less vicious,
paranoid, precarious, and desperate world.
A world that can learn to share,
as our technology now demands,
of us all.
You cannot stop it, you may only assist,
something we can all agree on:
automate management and ownership out of a job!
thingsnottoaskacop.com
http://thingsnottoaskacop.com/
Consequences of Gay Marriage
Meanwhile in Canada
Real Fun Is Really Revolution
Brings to mind the paranoid/threat/fantasy of the late 60s about squirt guns filled with LSD…
Want Legislation Written By & For Humans?
Vote with the party that takes no corporate money. See http://gp.org
xkcd.com
Red Vs Blue & 1-800-Magic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BAM9fgV-ts&feature=PlayList&p=k707-IeVBto
if you like gaming and humor try Red Vs Blue, based on using the Halo engine with ROTFL dialog
http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?sid=magic
1-800-Magic, two humans and an elf engage in a firefight against a team of four trolls,
along with tech support and a talking tree they discover magic together
“One Nation Promising Another the Land of a Third”
BBC presents: The Birth of Israel (2008) – 58:43
http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=2511
Green Party, get ready for a mass influx of Dems
04 September 2011
If you’re hankering to see a mess of progressives, and recently former Dems, who are seriously looking at alternatives to voting for Obama, check out the comments on any one of many articles posted Sept. 2-3 at CommonDreams.org.
These first two are defiantly rife with mentions of, and opportunities to mention, the Green Party; I commented profusely on the first one:
Obama’s Ozone Decision: The Final Green Straw?
by Darren Goode
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/03-3
Obama’s Laborious Labor Day
by Ralph Nader
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/03#comment-1918515
Odds are you will find many more articles with comments expressing similar sentiments, the following might be a great place to start, the sentiments quoted below seemed much more common in the above articles:
Obama Administration Delays Life-Saving Smog Standards
by Frances Beinecke
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-12
“I’ll vote for Palin (Perry) before Obama.”
Today We Risk Arrest for Justice; Tomorrow We Organize for It
Letter from Young People at the Tar Sands Action
by Young Climate Activists
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-5
“No votes for any Democrat in the 2012 election, not a local or state or federal level. NO INCUMBENTS either. We’ve seen that trust got us.”
“By the way I think voting for the Green Party candidate for president makes more sense than not voting.”
I stressed organizing, voting, mesplay.org, and gp.org, see what you can find to comment upon.
GPUS-CA Prez Forum Dec, 3, 2011
Watch live streaming video from greenpartyus at livestream.com
Jill Stein In Madison
live streaming video from Jill Stein In Madison
GPUS LiveStream @ http://livestre.am/CTT
Grist Interview – Dr. Stein Aims to Rebuild Broken System
A great interview with Dr. Stein in Grist went so well it was most liked and re-posted in a long time
Clearly this is a message that people like when they see it. Please share to help to make it even more viral.
#1 Tech Support Secret
tech_support_cheat_sheet.png – from http://xkcd.com/
Occupy USA
I Want You to Occupy Wall Street
The Shift
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheShiftMovie
Animals Playing and Playin with Baby Animals
National Institute For Play – http://nifplay.org/index2.html
Polar bears playing – BBC wildlife
Animals at Play
Polar bears and dogs playing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCJ5_Oc2T3g&fmt=18
Dog adopts two albino tiger cubs
Cute baby tiger
Raccoon and dog play fighting
When a Puppy Attacks (A Weed)
Tree Climbing Dog – PetTube.com
My bird fetching
Cute white lion cubs form part of breeding programme
Baby elephant takes first steps – CUTE!
Second Baby Elephant Waves Hello
Baby Elephant With Attitude
Elephants vs Lions Encounter. (cutest little lion cubs)
Mother From Another (Species) – PetTube.com
Rabbit and Dog Share Carrot
Cute Baby Gorilla’s first steps
Raccoon Playing With a Swing
Spinning Parrot
Parrot massages cat’s head (more like petting if you ask me)
Fishing for Chipmunks (squirrels, really)
Pomeranian Dance Performance
Parrot which is smarter than humans
Twin Baby Boys Laughing at Each Other
Cute Baby Ocelot Kittens
A parrot pondering a problem
Re: Baby Kitten and his funny meows
Chicken Lays a Kitten – PetTube.com
Best Baby Laugh
Carvaka
This ancient “atheist” materialist philosophy
from India is known only by it’s detractors,
as “Gnostic” schools were until recently.
Like the Nag Hammadi, these words are more
aligned with my view of the Allness
then the streams that have mainly
come down to us.
As i’ve said before, my school is one of
a very hard core purely literal Materialism.
The spirit and the thing are not at all identical,
they are simply one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka
That the pleasure arising to man from contact
with sensible objects, is to be relinquished
because accompanied by pain?
Such is the reasoning of fools.
The kernels of the paddy,
rich with finest white grains,
what man, seeking his own true interest,
would fling them away,
because of a covering of husk and dust?
The Agnihotra, the three Vedas,
the ascetic’s three staves,
and smearing oneself with ashes —
Brihaspati says,
these are but means of livelihood for
those who have no manliness nor sense.
In this school there are four elements,
earth, water, fire and air; and from these
four elements alone is intelligence produced —
just like the intoxicating power from kinwa &c,
mixed together; since in “I am fat”, “I am lean”,
these attributes abide in the same subject,
and since fatness, &c, reside only in the body,
it alone is the soul and no other,
and such phrases as “my body”
are only significant metaphorically.
If a beast slain in the Jyothishtoma rite
will itself go to heaven, why then does not
the sacrificer forthwith offer his own father?
If the Sraddha produces gratification to beings
who are dead, then why not give food down below
to those who are standing on the house-top?
If he who departs from the body
goes to another world,
how is it that he come not back again,
restless for love of his kindred?
Hence it is only as a means of livelihood that
Brahmans have established here all these ceremonies
for the dead, — there is no other fruit anywhere.
The three authors of the Vedas were buffoons,
knaves, and demons.
All the well-known formulae of the pandits,
jarphari, turphari, etc. and all the obscene rites
for the queen commanded in Aswamedha,
these were invented by buffoons,
and so all the various kinds of presents to
the priests, while the eating of flesh was
similarly commanded by night-prowling demons.
Fire is hot, water cold,
refreshingly cool is the breeze of morning;
By whom came this variety?
They were born of their own nature.
Springing forth from these elements itself
solid knowledge is destroyed when they are destroyed—
after death no intelligence remains.
While life remains, let a man live happily,
let him feed on butter though he runs in debt;
When once the body becomes ashes,
how can it ever return again?
Zen of Responsible
A chance combination two Facebook posts and a late night email:
Scott McLendon commented on Cindy Sheehan’s status:
“”What is to give light must endure burning.”
“The experiences of camp life show that a man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to life.”
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
“Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it-likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them. ”
“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. ”
“Our generation is realistic for we have come to know man as he really is.
“After all, man is that being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or Shema Yisrael on his lips. ”
“Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self’s actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.”
” “So, let us be alert-alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
–Viktor Frankl
——————–Freedom for what ?
Bodhi Sarango sent a message to the members of Celebrating The New Man – Zorba the Buddha.
- OSHO, BEING YOUR SANNYASIN HAS GIVEN ME THE SENSE OF FREEDOM OF NOT BELONGING TO ANY PARTICULAR PLACE, COUNTRY OR EVEN NATIONALITY. IT’S REALLY GREAT. I’VE FELT ABLE TO MOVE ABOUT WITHOUT MUCH FEAR AND TO BE COMMITTED WITHOUT FEELING IMPRISONED. WHY THEN, AFTER NINE YEARS, DO I FEEL A BITTER SADNESS MIXED WITH THIS SENSE OF FREEDOM?
- Freedom has two sides and if you have only one side of it, a single side, you will feel freedom mixed with sadness. So you have to understand the whole psychology of freedom.
The first side is freedom from: from nationality, from a certain church, from a certain race, from a certain political ideology. This is the first part of freedom, the foundation of freedom. It is always from something. Once you have attained this freedom, you will feel very light and very good and very happy. And for the first time you will start rejoicing in your own individuality, because your individuality was covered with all those things that you have become free of.
But this is only one half and then there will come sadness, because the other half is missing. Freedom from is fulfilled, but freedom for what? Freedom in itself has no meaning, unless it is freedom for something, something creative — freedom to sculpt, freedom to dance, freedom to create music, poetry, painting. Unless your freedom turns into a creative realization, you will feel sad. Because you will see that you are free: your chains are broken, you no longer have any handcuffs, you no longer have any chains, you don’t have any prison, you are standing under the starry night, completely free, but where to go?
Then comes a sudden sadness. What path to choose? Up to now there was no question of going anywhere — you were imprisoned. Your whole consciousness was concentrated on how to get free, your only anxiety was how to get free. Now that you are free, a new kind of problem has to be encountered. What to do now that you are free?
Just freedom in itself does not mean anything, unless you choose a creative path. Either you go deeper into meditation for self-realization — that’s what I was talking about: unless you become like Premda, pregnant — or if you have a certain kind of talent that has not been allowed to develop because of your fetters — you could not compose music because your hands were in chains, you could not dance because your feet were in chains … If you have a talent to be a dancer, then be a dancer. Then your freedom is complete, then the circle is complete.
Freedom from and freedom for — this is not something new that you are facing. It is being faced by every person who struggles first for freedom and then suddenly finds, “Now that I am free, what am I going to do?” Up to now, he was so occupied, so engaged, so very busy. Even in his dreams he was thinking only of freedom. And he has never thought about what he is going to do when he will get freedom.
Prem Islamo, what has happened is beautiful. But something more is needed. You have to become a creator. You have to find some creativity that fulfills your freedom, otherwise the freedom is empty. You need either to create something or to discover something. Either bring your potential to actuality or go inwards to find yourself, but do something with your freedom.
Freedom is only an opportunity for you. It is not in itself the goal. It simply gives you the whole opportunity to do whatever you want to do. Now you are free and you are feeling sad, because you have not used this opportunity yet. Meditation will do, music will do, sculpture will do, dancing will do, love will do. But do something with your freedom. Just don’t sit with your freedom, otherwise you will become sad.
Freedom has to be a creative force in your life, not just a negative kind of freedom. The first part is negative: it is simply getting rid of the prison, it is getting rid of the chains. That you have done: now you are standing underneath the sky, completely lost.
Perhaps you have never realized that the imprisoned person has a certain reason for remaining imprisoned. That’s why millions of people in the world remain prisoners of religion, of caste, creed, nation, color. All kinds of prisons they go on tolerating — not without reason. Their reason is that when they are imprisoned they don’t have any responsibility, they don’t have to be creators, they don’t have to find some positivity in their freedom. It is enough for them to remain imprisoned, because then others will go on taking care.
Why are people Christians, why are people Hindus, why are people Mohammedans? Because Jesus will take care. You need not be worried. All that you have to be is just a slave of the Christian church. And the Christian church will take care of all your sins and of all that is needed. One feels absolutely unburdened with responsibility — no responsibility.
But remember one thing, fundamental to the whole question of freedom: responsibility and freedom are together. If you don’t want to have responsibility, you can’t have freedom either. They both come together or they both go together. If you leave responsibility, you have to accept slavery in some way or other.
read full note here:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=270594700094
Osho
Two versions of the responsibility for freedom, how green…
Hi, Monte,
Thought you might appreciate this. I’ve had this reference in my library for years, I was going to send this text and reference to you last summer, but, time and tides wait for no spam.
–charles
From:
Sutra Spoken By The Sixth Patriarch On The High Seat Of The Treasure Of The Law
(Aka: The Platform Sutra)
———————
…
Thus, to the knowledge of no one, the dharma was transmitted to me at midnight, and consequently I became the inheritor of the teaching of the Sudden school as well as of the robe and the begging bowl.
“You are now the sixth patriarch,” said he «Hung-jen, the fifth patriarch –c.o.», “Take good care of yourself, and deliver as many sentient beings as possible. Spread and preserve the teaching, and don’t let it come to an end. Take note of my stanza:
Sentient beings who sow seeds of enlightenment
In the field of causation will reap the fruit of buddhahood.
Inanimate objects void of buddha-nature
Sow not and reap not.
He further said, “When the patriarch Bodhidharma first came to China, most Chinese had no confidence in him, and so this robe was handed down as a testimony from one patriarch to another. As to the dharma, this is transmitted from heart to heart, and the recipient must realize it by his own efforts. From time immemorial it has been the practice for one buddha to pass to his successor the quintessence of the dharma, and for one patriarch to transmit to another the esoteric teaching from heart to heart. As the robe may give cause for dispute, you are the last one to inherit it. Should you hand it down to your successor, your life would be in imminent danger. Now leave this place as quickly as you can, lest some one should do you harm.”
…
After saying good-bye, I left him and walked toward the south. In about two months’ time, I reached Ta-Yü Mountain. There I noticed that several hundred men were in pursuit of me with the intention of robbing me of my robe and begging bowl.
Among them there was a monk named Hui-ming, whose lay surname was Ch’en. He was a general of the fourth-rank in lay life. His manner was rough and his temper hot. Of all the pursuers, he was the most vigilant in search of me. When he was about to overtake me, I threw the robe and the begging bowl on a rock, saying, “This robe is nothing but a symbol. What is the use of taking it away by force?” [I then hid myself.]
When he got to the rock, he tried to pick them up, but found he could not. Then he shouted out, “Lay brother, lay brother [for the patriarch had not yet formally joined the Order], I come for the dharma, not for the robe.”
Whereupon I came out from my hiding place and squatted on the rock. He made obeisance and said, “Lay brother, preach to me please.”
“Since the object of your coming is the dharma,” said I, “refrain from thinking of anything and keep your mind blank. I will then teach you.” When he had done this for a considerable time. I said, “When you are thinking of neither good nor evil, what is at that particular moment, venerable sir, your real nature [literally, original face]?”
As soon as he heard this he at once became enlightened. But he further asked, “Apart from those esoteric sayings and esoteric ideas handed down by the patriarchs from generation to generation, are there any other esoteric sayings?”
“What I can tell you is not esoteric,” I replied. “If you turn your light inwardly, you will find what is esoteric within you.”
“In spite of my staying in Huang-mei,” said he, “I did not realize my self-nature. Now thanks to your guidance, I know it as a water drinker knows how hot or cold the water is. Lay brother, you are now my teacher.”
I replied ” if that is so, then you and I are fellow disciples of the fifth patriarch. Take good care of yourself.”
…
pp73-76,
From: _The Diamond Sutra & The Sutra Of Hui-Neng_, tr. A. F. Price & Wong Mou-lam, 1990, Shambhala Press. Excerpt from The Platform Sutra of Hui-Neng.
i hear the 7th Master had known for some time that the uninspiring acolyte coveted his robebut thought he was concealing it
Out of the desperation born of lack of talent the acolyte began to plot,
One night he made up his mind
On the way, in the rain, knowing they are alone they meet
Looking in the eye he disrobes dropping the robe in the puddle, he walks away
The 8th kneels and weeps, the office is passed
I may have the enumeration wrong, these things all run together in my mind…
want to know why i like the one hand clapping koan?
Human Responsibility, Zen, mental liberty, you, myself, Allness Is Being, Life, death
and then bring it back ’round again
25 January 2010
Curiculum Vitae
Academic Portfolio
Monte Letourneau
May 20, 2005
Table of contents:
List of My Courses
About My Courses Before Returning to UWM
Information Resources at SOIS UWM, and My Four Core Competencies
Future Directions
List of My Courses:
Course Grade Description Credits Transferred As
Area I
E ASIAN 101 D First Semester Chinese 6 LINGUIS 121
COMP LIT 288 AB Masterpieces of Literature For Honors II 3 COMPLIT 208
LINGUIS 200 A- Aspects of Language 3 :
ANTHRO 101 A- Introduction to Anthro – Human Prehistory 3 :
POL SCI 175 B+ Introduction to International Relations 3 :
WL ECOL 360 B Extinction Of Species 3 BIO SCI XN
ZOOLOGY 120 BC Biological Principles and their Impact On Society 3 BIO SCI 103
Area II
L&I SCI 632 A Microcomputer-Information Resources Management 3
L&I SCI 110 A Introduction to Information Science 3
L&I SCI 210 A- Foundations of University Library Research 3 :
L&I SCI 230 A Organization of Knowledge 3 :
L&I SCI 250 A Internet Planning & Implementation 3 :
L&I SCI 330 Electronic Information Retrieval 3 :
L&I SCI 410 Database Information Retrieval Systems 3 :
L&I SCI 430 Multimedia Application Development 3 :
L&I SCI 490 Senior Capstone; DVD Site Project Management & this document 3 :
Area III
Business:
L&I SCI 640 A- Information Marketing 3 :
Area IV
L&I SCI 240 A Information Architecture I 3 :
L&I SCI 340 A Information Architecture II 3 :
L&I SCI 399 Independent Study; XML 3 :
L&I SCI 440 Information Architecture III 3 :
L&I SCI 510 Introduction to Reference Services & Resources 3 :
L&I SCI 681 Archives & Primary Sources in the information Age 3 :
Electives:
POLI SCI 209 B Issues In Political Thought 4 POL SCI XS :
POLI SCI 260 BC Latin America: An Introduction 4 HIST 180
POL SCI 392 Survey Research: Design, Perform, & Analyze Unemployment Attitudes Poll 3 :
POLI SCI 551 BC Quantitative Analysis Of Political Data 4 POL SCI 390
POLI SCI 570 C Literature And Politics 4 POL SCI U
POLI SCI 651 B Politics Of South Asia 4 POL SCI U
POLI SCI 654 AB Politics Of Revolution 4 POL SCI 321
ANTHRO 22 B+ Ancient Cities of the Americas 1 :
COMPLIT 232 B+ Literature and Politics: Religious & Moral Perspectives of the 19th & 20th Centuries 3 :
ILS 202 BC Integrated Liberal Studies; Western Culture: History of Science, Technology, & Philosophy II 3 TRAN-L&S XS :
LIT TRAN 262 B Survey Of Chinese Literature 3 COMPLIT X 3.00
AFROAMER 277 B Africa: An Introductory Survey 4 AFRICOL 232
E ASIAN 240 A Introduction to the I-Ching: Book Of Change 2 TRAN-L&S
PHILOS 204 B+ Introduction to Asian Religions 3 :
SPANISH 101 F First Year Spanish 0 SPANISH 103
Course Topic(s): Chinese Calligraphy
PEACEST 201 Introduction to Peace Studies & Conflict Resolution 3
2003-05-28 Deans Honor List
2004-01-06 Deans Honor List
My Learning Prior to SOIS at UWM:
My concentration has been on political science and studies of cultures.
There have been many opportunities for me to integrate my focus on the needs of citizens, whilst pursuing my SOIS studies.
Within SOIS I have focused a few graduate courses on library science, so one could easily say I have concentrated on the citizen need for information resources and how it can best be filled with our current capabilities. I have focused much study on the optimal future development of information resources for public use into the future.
There are several competencies that it has served me well to study; many of the most useful come from the second half of my academic career, when I’ve studied IR at UWM SOIS. The foundation upon which that course of study was laid was half a lifetime’s self directed study on the historical issues of the people in politics, and the possibilities that our technical development can and does open up for a more human future. The core of this study is the first half of my academic career; I particularly was left an impression on by a handful of these classes. Although the mists of time deprive me of much detail, I will start with the classes from my classic liberal arts / humanities phase.
First chapter highlights start with Ancient Cities of the Americas, Anthro 22. Although I can’t remember the professor’s name, he was a giant in his field and had been in charge of the digs at Teotehuacan and Cahokia, each for extended critical periods of time. He taught no more soon after that (1985), and was so old he was difficult to hear, but he put me on to a very important concept that is still having a hard time being accepted as the new paradigm. He told me, in trying to make sense of some details, or another, that there was much circumstantial evidence for many ancient American cities that tells a similar tale.
These city states all developed very complex hierarchies. These tended to grow over time, and eventually become too large and top heavy to be supported by those below. At this point they would eat up all their reserves, and hinterlands. Then when nothing could keep it working, the culture would collapse completely. As there would be no food anywhere nearby, the entire culture of that place would disappear, and the survivors would simply found a new, more egalitarian way of life somewhere else. He was quite convincing with this case using Cahokia, where he was the prominent expert in the field, and the evidence is quite strong now that this was the case. The Teotehuacan hierarchy may have survived somewhat transmuted as the Aztec, or some other aristocracy, its case is not so cut and dried. He hinted that the Maya may also prove to be a similar case, and since he has left us, the case has become pretty solid that the Maya just threw the culture away but are still using many of the same walled orchards, built long ago, today.
This gives me much hope, for I saw us as more like the Cahokian model, but without the ability to escape back to the hinterland and the wilderness. Our culture is so profoundly large, and impacts this planet so universally, that this class helped me see another way that we are meeting a grave new challenge never seen before. Next social collapse, there will be nowhere to leave to. This paradigm also pointed out the degree to which our culture has a built in addiction to frontiers, and that the frontier of human endeavor had transformed historically with the close the physical frontier of earth’s lands.
This lesson was bolstered by my simultaneously taking Anthro 101, and was thrown in sharp contrast by Intro to International Relations (the other IR), Poli Sci 175. A professor whose name I prefer to forget thought that the concept of hegemony was deep, and important, and the greatest thing since sliced bread. I may have been more inclined to agree with him were his intent to teaching hegemony less akin to Kissinger’s intent in practicing it. This semester is when I discovered my true enemy was hierarchal socio-political power, not the hierarchy itself, but the concept of its legitimacy.
So that was my first semester at UWM, formative. Then I went to Madison.
There were four courses that had a great impact on me individually, and one semester when three courses combined to cover the three sides of the golden triangle. These all were part of my focus on the political history of the peoples of our world.
The two most important of these seven were focused on biology and the history of science.
The first of the four was Poli Sci 209, Issues in Political Thought. The issue for the semester was the history of words used to identify political ideologies. In this class I came to understand that disparate modern ideologies had all started as something that I believed in strongly, but that over time the vagaries of political power had twisted the discourse until it was impossible to use these words to have meaningful discussion of the concepts that they represent. This is because they each have so many different meanings to different people. It helped me understand how skewed modern American political discourse is, and why it is so difficult to discuss politics meaningfully in the US. This formed the basis of my ability to define my very simple anarkic beliefs, regardless of my audiences’ understanding of ideological terms.
The theme of Chinese, and Asian religious cultures, that also spanned these years, contributed much to my ability to discuss my spiritual beliefs, which were emerging from my atheism at the same time.
The other Poli Sci course that had great impact was Poli Sci 654, Politics of Revolution. I’d always wanted to see myself as a revolutionary, this course helped me sort thru what is wrong and what is right with the revolutions that have occurred so far. One of the best parts of it was that we looked closely at what causes revolution; what factors were always present, and which, not being present, prevent effective change regardless of the need. The perception of the possibility of positive change appears to be the most important predisposition towards people changing their world. This concept has had a profound impact on me and it has grown stronger and more refined over time.
Two science courses had a profound impact on me in ways that go beyond science to political and spiritual understandings that have remained important to me. The prior semester had laid some foundations for this. Three classes covered different sides of the infamous golden triangle at the same time; this really helped me achieve a good overview of modern western history. Poli Sci 260, Intro to Latin America, and Afroamer 277 Intro to Africa really helped me understand how eurocentric culture has in fact created underdevelopment, and that it is sustained by the state department and other institutions that have inherited the mantle of the wealth and power of the eurocentric economic worldview. The other class I had that semester is hard to describe, for it was an interdisciplinary look at the evolution of western culture, science, technology, and philosophy. Integrated Liberal Studies 202 II was full of expansive ideas and charted the interrelation of what we see as different fields of study, and how they have become fragmented over time. All three of these classes spent the same two weeks on the period of the golden triangle. At the end of this time I realized that I had acquired a quite a broad and comprehensive view of western history, from within it’s philosophical core, and in it’s context of other cultures.
The take home lesson for this semester: when an ancient Greek used the word teknos, he was discussing not only how, and with what, but also why. We have divorced our reason from itself; we do not ask why we design science, technology, and philosophy. They have all become ancillaries to earning money, which motive is unquestioned. That this is the essential goal of our culture (earning more money for/by those who already have much of it), and our biggest barrier to good politics, science, and technology, was beginning to become apparent to me, but it was the history of science that straightened me out for good. I clearly remember History of Science 101, but my transfer transcripts contain no reference to it. It was near the end of this class, which was a broad overview of the rise of modern science over the last few centuries, that I realized that a good portion of the technical difficulties we are having with survival on earth has come from a changing of the priorities and motives for science, research, and technical development over the years.
What originally was a grand enterprise to improve the human condition and grow closer to God by understanding his world better has become mainly harnessed to the capitalist profit motive. There are many small reasons for this, and collectively they are quite substantial. This changed my core understanding, until then I saw all political problems as essentially being solvable by technical solutions.
Now I see that all technical problems require political solutions.
Information Resources at SOIS UWM, and My Four Core Competencies:
This brings me to the second half of my course work, a focus on the teknos of solutions to political problems. Entering the SOIS, I had the advantage of seeing technology not as object, but as process implying a purpose. I also had the advantage of knowing the power of information and knowledge to transform our world, as well as knowing the importance information access for everyone has to the world. Though I could only see at the time that I would rather study information use generally than any given field, I have found in IR studies the answers the first half of my studies had sent me looking for.
I felt simultaneously well updated and at home in my first semester back at UWM, in the IR program at SOIS. In L&I SCI 632 and L&I SCI 110 there was much discussion about the ethics of information use. We covered the need for intellectual property security, and the digital divide. These discussions helped bring my focus on socio-political issue back into focus. Class discussion in these classes did more to help me comprehend the current state of these issues more than any other materials could have. These two classes rounded out the competency I brought back to school with me. This is a basic, broad humanities background with a view of the context of our past, but a focus on current and future needs. I have rounded out this competency with the addition of PEACE ST 201, Intro to Conflict Resolution, we studied conflict and it’s resolution. There was a real relevance here in that the digital divide and the information economy were important topics of the class. William Ury’s “Getting to Peace” was an excellent text that put a larger context to our cultural development. His essential argument was that we have returned to the expandable economic pie of our ancestors who were hunter-gatherers as a result of the knowledge economy. He places blame for violence among humans largely on the limited economic resources of the agricultural revolution. Like a hunter gather economy, but more so, the resources that matter in the knowledge revolution expand when shared, instead of shrinking like land and water do when shared. Ury is famous for his work as a corporate consultant and mediator. This socio-economic competence is formative and central to me. There are three other competencies that I value very much, it is easier to discuss them while discussing the second half of my course work, which is mostly in IR. In a word each: research, project management, and web implementation. My preexisting artistic bent has enjoyed flourishing particularly in web implementation and design.
The core competency that I value having expanded in SOIS, is the ability to do research. In L&I Sci. 210, Foundations of University Library Research, I learned how to research and document a good college paper. I had acquired a pretty good sense for how to write a paper, but this course covers material every student should know about how to use reference materials better to do research and to document it.
In L&I SCI 330, Electronic Info Retrieval, and L&I SCI 510, Intro to Reference Services and Resources, my ability to do research was expanded and solidified. The ability to find the information one needs is the most important skill today in my opinion. In all three of these course’s, databases, the Internet, and practice, were far more powerful than any books that could have been assigned. The familiarity I gained with the use of a reference library is invaluable to me, and was given uncommon depth, for a baccalaureate, by the addition of L&I SCI 681, Using Archives: The Value of Primary Sources in the Information Age. This course is about managing and organizing archives. One of its focuses was about basic marketing issues, this helped complete the course of thought began with L&I SCI 640, Information Marketing. This class was primarily about marketing information; the focus was on marketing free library resources to the public in an information economy. As this course was one of my first IR courses, it set a course of questioning that I followed throughout these following courses, comprising what I call the engineering, or development, competency.
One of the few courses that had books that I thought were instrumental to me was, L&I SCI 310, Human Factors of Info Seeking and Use. This course was essentially a study of usability. As someone who has an interest in universal info access, it was very instructive to study the methods of measuring and ameliorating usability problems. There were two books in this class that left an impression on me. The first was “Don’t Make Me Think”, almost a new type of book, being easy to skim and navigate; it was the best example I’ve ever seen for Steve Krug’s points about web design in book form. Donald Norman’s “Things that Make Us Smart” was all about how the focus of the information technology should be on conforming it to human needs, as opposed to the recent historical trend of adapting human behavior to the machines. To function, the knowledge economy technology needs to make us smarter. Tools that are not easily handled by the human mind don’t makes us smart as effectively.
To further bolster this engineering, or product development, focus, it was instructive to have three other courses in addition. L&I SCI 250, Internet Planning & Implementation, taught me how to build an enterprise scale intranet, and introduced the concept of project management, and working in groups. PM techniques were expanded upon and given depth and context in L&I SCI 340, Information Architecture II. Here we learned about basic PM tools and techniques. This was a good course for understanding information projects in the context of a modern corporate culture that is aware of the need for good project management. In L&I SCI 490, Senior Capstone, we put PM methods and tools into use in a group project of design and implementation of a scripted website.
The capstone class also capped off experience and formal study in the remaining competency, interactive web design and implementation. This is the competency that I most enjoy exercising and learning, because it satisfies my creative and artistic self. In L&S 110, we were introduced to HTML markup. I was delighted to design my first web page in this class, and this carried over into L&I SCI 240, Information Architecture I, where we learned a lot about HTML and learned some JavaScript as well. We also learned about CSS and other kinds of templates. L&I SCI 440, Information Architecture III, expanded this scripting background; we designed ASP and PHP interactive web applications that worked with databases. There were several good texts covered in these courses, but the best sources were web based, like Webmonkey.com, and W3C pages.
Future Directions:
Designing web implementations gave me ideas that may bring all these competencies back together. I am working out some ideas I have for how web applications can be used to automate some of the work of group self governance. On the surface the concept is no more than a survey, but it is hyper survey. A web application could make it much easier, and more democratic, to share opinions and decisions. Just for beginners, we could rank the questions to order them by value, and share each other’s answers. Most important, the web environment will enable more ease of rewording of proposed questions and the posting new questions by participants. All in all, there is much room to improve communication, expression, and decisions, on political matters in the online environment. There are security issues that I find hard to solve simply, without the use of nominal Paypal payments, or some other such conceptually inappropriate use, but they are not intractable to a fair solution, and new solutions will arise organically.
A similar idea is to use cooperative effort to compile useful link lists to serve the peoples’ expanding need for coherence in the flood of data. A multi-axis system of categories and rankings could be combined with user inputs and valuations. This could enable the finding, and listing, of links in a number of different criteria simultaneously, with a ranking along a spectrum of each criterion. In this way one could search for just the right level of knowledge at the intersection of several interests. Some of these axes (political radicalism, or left-right spectrum, as opposed to the freedom-safety spectrum, or scientific radical-conservative spectrum) would be more subjective and geared towards values, trust, and taste. XML, which was the topic of my independent study, L&I SCI 399, is a markup that would make a good platform core for these types of applications.
My focus on universal empowerment through knowledge access has been brought much empowerment itself, in the form of these three other competencies. Research, product development, and web implementation, are well bundled here to perform the job I have assigned myself. It is my job to help all I can to ensure that these possibilities are used to help us all, for our boat is now to small for us to survive historic levels of collective individual selfishness. The new frontier is knowledge automation, but good results there are right next door to everyone, truly this is a new kind of new frontier. Clearly this frontier is in many ways the most open ever in terms of possibilities. I have confidence in our ability to build a sustainable knowledge economy, for the possibilities are limited only by our imagination. Yet I am concerned, for Politics of Revolution has taught me that we will not change our ways unless we perceive that we are able, and there is much in our socio-economic system that argues that we are helpless before it. We are not, however, helpless before it, it is we. Whether we know, or care, or not, every one of us changes and defines our culture, every day.
Currently I see my future in self employment as a webmaster while also working in the non-profit sector and/or knowledge industry. It is my dream to work with the national Green Party web team while working for Google. In both cases I would seek to work on ideas like the two cited above. Ultimately I would like to work in consulting and as a webmaster, while creating a game site out of the Science Fiction Utopian novel I’ve been working on. I would like to find a way to express my artistic urges in the meantime, so I am thinking about studies in computer imagery. In the meantime I intend to spend my summer learning Macromedia.