THE UGLY TRUTH: VIDEO OF LIBYAN REBEL BEHEADING GADHAFFI SOLDIER And Other NATO War Crimes

By Susan Lindauer - Posting #153 Change............. My Ass!

Links Updated 30/June/11 :o

NATO has been pumping propaganda out of Libya to justify its “humanitarian war” against the government of Moammar Gadhaffi. Until now, NATO has succeeded in large part because ordinary citizens around the world have no access to direct intelligence on which to base their own opinions. As the former CIA Asset who covered Libya at the United Nations from 1995 to 2003 during negotiations for the Lockerbie Trial, I am compelled to break past that propaganda to examine actual evidence.

Responding to numerous requests, I am sharing primary evidence that I receive daily from sources inside Tripoli. Video documentation comes from Libyan refugees, collected by a fact finding commission called “Global Civilians for Peace in Libya.” The fact-finding team includes Europeans, Africans, Americans and international human rights attorneys, who are preparing allegations of War Crimes against NATO. Judging from these videos, financial damages that NATO will be required to pay Libya should be stupendous, indeed.

Above all, it’s clear NATO has grossly misrepresented its arguments at the United Nations, in order to justify military action against Gadhaffi. Britain and France trusted bad intelligence from unreliable sources, trying to gain power from the conflict. A more careful investigation shows that it is the NATO Rebels who are guilty of serious war crimes—not Gadhaffi’s soldiers at all. Sanctions should be thrown out, and NATO should shift its military forces to back Gadhaffi in defending the Libyan people.

Never play truth or dare with a spy.

The videos portray horrific atrocities. There are two important reasons why NATO Rebels would commit these acts. First, in committing war crimes, NATO Rebels have deployed a strategy for provoking panic and confusion at the street level, where they must control the people. They have frightened their opposition into silent submission. Ordinary Libyans can see with their own eyes that Libyan Rebels are all powerful, protected by NATO and CIA enforcers. Pro-Gadhaffi loyalists had better shut their mouths or face terrible consequences.

At the same time, Libyan Rebels have discovered a way to punch NATO’s buttons, and fire up the engines for the “Humanitarian War–” For some reason, the world is supposed to believe that Gadhaffi’s government—which has no history of attacking its own people in 41 years of rule—is suddenly guilty of the most hideous offenses.

Those of us who have studied Libya closely have opposite expectations. Historically, Gadhaffi has been so tenacious and protective of his people that he refused to hand over two Libyan men for the Lockerbie trial, despite years of U.N. sanctions. Gadhaffi knew the men were innocent, and would not get a fair shake in Court. To sum up, Lockerbie was a false flag operation to hide rogue CIA involvement in heroin trafficking out of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, during the Terry Anderson hostage crisis. A joint team of CIA, FBI and Defense Intelligence investigators were flying on Pan Am 103 that day, heading for Washington to expose the heroin ring, when the plane exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libya got tagged as the fall guy, but like 9/11, the truth refused to die. And Gadhaffi refused to back down. He stood by his people, despite punishing international pressures.

Gadhaffi’s guess proved correct, by the way. In one of the most shameful episodes of corruption ever at the International Courts, the U.S. bribed two witnesses at the Lockerbie Trial with $4 million pay offs. After both witnesses recanted and confessed to the payments, the only Libyan convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Abdelbasset Megrahi, won a “compassionate release” from Scottish prison in August, 2009, ostensibly so he could go home to die of cancer.

Gadhaffi’s actions reveal a great deal about his character. As a leader, does he throw his people to the wolves? Or abandon them for convenience? Notoriously not. He claims the Libyan people as his own. He protects them no matter the cost to himself.

These videos are the reality check. Ironically, by claiming Gadhaffi’s forces have been responsible for rape crimes specifically, NATO has made a glaring admission that War Crimes are in fact occurring inside Libya. Headlines that Gadhaffi issued Viagra to fuel rape binges by his soldiers played very well on CNN. However former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has determined that the only major purchaser of Viagra bound for Libya was the U.S. Government itself, which handed out Little Blue Pills to older Rebel soldiers to energize them for battle.

That strategy has backfired. Ordinary Libyans are fleeing Rebel strongholds, racing to the protection of Gadhaffi’s central authority for safety.

The Bad Guys

These videos look awfully like Al Qaeda to me. But don’t take my word for it. Look at the evidence and decide for yourself. They’re hosted at www.FederalJack.com on a special site, www.obamaslibya.com, because it’s got hefty security and rock solid courage to speak truth to power. FederalJack.com will not back down. More videos will be added in coming weeks.

The first video shows a Libyan rebel beheading a Libyan soldier. If it looks like Iraq, well golly, the highest percentage of foreign fighters in Iraq (and Chechnya and Afghanistan) came from Eastern Libya. Unhappily for NATO, there’s no avoiding that this video was shot in Libya: The men are speaking a Libyan Arab dialect with its own distinct accent.

The second video shows gruesome footage of a Libyan rebel cutting up the rotted flesh of a dead soldier and forcing it into the hands of Libyan Prisoners of War, who are lined up in a row so they must eat it.

Another video shows a group of Rebels sodomizing a civilian with a pistol. Another shows a crowd of Rebels hanging and beheading a Libyan soldier.

Another video shows CIA operatives working side by side Rebel forces, and driving around in trucks— proof that U.S. forces are already in Libya in violation of President Obama’s promise to Congress to keep boots off the ground.

Another video shows several dead Libyan soldiers with their throats cut, lying in the back of a truck. The killings violate the Geneva Conventions of War, which protect enemy soldiers after capture. In the excitement, NATO Rebels encouraged a frightened on-looker to video the butchery and claim that Gadhaffi’s forces were responsible. Afterward, the man with the video grabbed his family and fled the Rebel stronghold. That’s how the video reached the fact-finding group in Tripoli.

It’s all on www.obamaslibya.com, hosted by Federal Jack, with our greatest thanks for having the guts to show the truth, which corporate media lacks. It’s so barbaric that it defies understanding how NATO could have envisioned these Rebels as holding any leadership potential at all.

Rape As a Weapon of War

Worst than you thought, right? Most notoriously up to this point, it has become evident that Rebels are using rape as a war-time punishment of pro-Gadhaffi or “neutral” families. In Islamic culture, the whole family suffers stigmas after rape, a sort of communal punishment.

Right now a team of female human rights attorneys are interviewing rape victims. Two rape testimonials and other eye witness reports are provided here. For the attorney affidavit on the larger problem, go to www.obamaslibya.com.

However these are not the most graphic stories. The problem is traveling hundreds of miles through checkpoints and bombs. By explanation, as of June 22, non-governmental fact finders are traveling 200 miles to video a boy who got castrated and both eyes gouged out by NATO Rebels as punishment for refusing to join their paramilitary unit.

Other video getting collected comes from a father, who describes the kidnapping of his virgin daughter from a pro-Gadhaffi family. After dragging her out of the house at gun-point and taking her to a rape party, NATO rebels cut off her breasts with a knife, and she bled to death.

Human rights investigators are now interviewing a Libyan Woman from Zawia who survived a brutal gang rape that cut off her breasts. Miraculously, horrified on-lookers saved her from bleeding to death, when excited Rebels ran off, firing their guns in the air. She’s been hospitalized, but she’s too physically and mentally damaged to handle the interview at the moment. International human rights attorney are standing by.

We urgently seek an American sponsor so this Libyan woman can undergo reconstructive surgery in the United States or Europe.

On June 19, Gadhaffi soldiers entering Misurata rescued another rape survivor. The young woman had been kidnapped and held hostage for 20 days. Rebel forces gang raped her every single day, round the clock, until Gadhaffi’s forces broke through their lines and saved her life.

So much for NATO’s humanitarian mission. Clearly NATO has been grossly deceived, and should cease at once from protecting these Rebels who are monstrously abusive to the Libyan people. U.S. tax dollars are training a New Taliban to intimidate the Libyan people into submission, while the West plunders Libya’s wealth.

But NATO failed to take into account the spirit of the Libyan people. Libya has a powerful history and traditions of resilience in defending its sovereignty from foreign invaders. Libyan families and Tribal Leaders are determined to seek financial damages from every NATO and Arab country that supports the rebels. So long as NATO provides training, uniforms, military assault rifles, jeeps and transportation, ground advisers and air power—-NATO will be forced to take responsibility for these crimes. Financial damages will come out of funding for NATO’s own citizens—out of education, health care, government pensions, universities, roads, bridges, you name it.

Patrick Haseldine, a British expert on Libya’s conflict with NATO, has calculated current British financial damages at $2.8 billion.

All of it begs the question why NATO governments should want to support these Rebels in the first place? Indeed, all of us should ask some important questions.

Should President Obama spend hard-earned U.S. tax dollars from the Middle Class to finance this War? Should America assume the role of training Al Qaeda forces and function as Al Qaeda enforcers? While our great nation bleeds red ink? While Americans struggle to find jobs and fight off foreclosures? Knowing that our soldiers are exhausted from two other failed Wars—fighting these same Al Qaeda Rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan?

And why exactly should America prop up NATO, so that the British and French can relive their glory days of Empire? Is it worth risking our Empire and prosperity? Really?

These videos reveal a whole different truth. The CIA will probably get mad that I have released them. But good Intelligence Assets are supposed to deliver brutal honesty. We’re not supposed to hide ugly truths. We’re supposed to get information that leaders—and communities— urgently need to make the most informed choices in policymaking. It happens to be very, very ugly intelligence. But it would be wrong for me to spare you.

In my opinion as a former U.S. Asset, the United States should break ties with the Libyan rebels and cut off financing immediately.

You can decide for yourself.

Susan Lindauer worked in anti-terrorism covering Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Malaysia at the United Nations. Her team gave advance warning about the 9/11 attack. She is the author of Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Walter Fauntroy, Feared Dead in Libya, Returns Home—Guess Who He Saw Doing the Killing

"Stop the bombing. Stop the killing. Stop the destruction. It's degenerated into killing people and destruction and I think this is really defiance. It's defiant behaviour," he says.

"Let's go to the United Nations and discuss whether the current policy is acceptable. I say no. Poor democracy. Under the flag of democracy all kinds of things are done."

_Mikhail Gorbachev

NATO’s Puppet Regime in Libya Falls Apart

Make No Mistake: NATO committed War Crimes in Libya

NATO Massacres of Civilians Aimed at "Cleansing" the Libyan People's Resistance

NATO And the Ungratefulness Of The Libyan People

Libya’s Palestinian Refugees and the Current Crisis (Part I of II)

Cruise Missiles With Depleted Uranium Rain On Libya

http://www.voltairenet.org/Cruise-missiles-with-depleted

http://www.voltairenet.org/NATO-War-Crimes-Depleted-Uranium

The military support for the Benghazi rebellion against the Tripoli dictator is provided to the great detriment of the civilian population. Out of every 10 guided missiles, approximately one goes out of control and crashes in the targeted area at random. But all the missiles – regardless of whether the depleted uranium is in the warhead or in the wings for stabilization – contaminate the area. Thus, in the years to come these so-called “humanitarian” bombings will continue to kill countless numbers of civilians, affirms Professor Massimo Zucchetti.

(((3)))

Obama's Libya War

Congressional Lawsuit Over Obama Administration’s Violation of War Powers Act in Libya

PM Leaks Dirt on Romas/COIN Classified Intel Mass Surveillance

By Ms. Smith - Posting #152

According to a Project PM announcement, here are some of the 'classified intelligence' details about Romas/COIN (Odyssey) with capabilities to monitor and automatically analyze millions of conversations, and then secretly store a wide range of personal data. It appears as if even Apple, Google, and Disney's Pixar were trying to be brought aboard to help out in this mass surveillance apparatus.

Updated note: To be clear, all analysis and documentation to expose this mass surveillance was done by Project PM.

If you are not sitting, please do so. Although I don't advocate drinking, you might also pour a double-shot of whiskey to prepare yourself for distinctly unpleasant news about immensely sophisticated mass surveillance called Romas/COIN, or soon to be replaced by a similar program known as Odyssey. The nature and extent of the "counter intelligence" operation can be glimpsed in part by closely inspecting hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal.

After searching through HBGary e-mails for keywords and reading until I wanted to puke or scream, I decided to go ahead and run with Project PM's announcement. Barrett Brown of Project PM will publish these findings in full on Project PM Wiki later, but this is part of that release. According to Project PM:

For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And with an upgrade (Odyssey) scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public - and which in some cases are used against that very same public. Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate U.S. law as well as American ideals.

Although military contractor Northrop Grumman had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, enter HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr in an email to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger federal contractor TASC, with a plan related to COIN. "I met with [Mantech CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is looking to expand a capability in IO [information operations] related to the COIN re-compete but more for DoD."

The layout and story is extremely long, and you'll need to read over the announcement at Project PM when it's published there. Project PM determined from the dozens of clues and references in leaked emails the unbelievable mass spying nature of Romas/COIN:

* Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of the program.

* There's discussion of bringing in a "gaming developer," apparently at the behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of "a social gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc." Lovegrove elsewhere notes: "I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the bill."

* Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as well. The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company to have received a "Hostile to Privacy" rating from Privacy International. Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a "bug."

* The program makes use of several providers of "linguistic services." At one point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist. Elsewhere, Barr writes: "I feel confident I can get you a ringer for Farsi if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also meeting with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and have to have the cultural relevance as well."

* Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as "businesses to contact." The former specializes in "social media monitoring tools." The latter uses "sophisticated natural language processing methodology" in order to "process tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily" while also employing "researchers and media analysts on the ground;" its website also notes that "Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before - exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their minds about everything from politics to products."

* At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, "Can we name COIN Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this."

* A diagram attached to one of Barr's e-mails to the group depicts Magpii as interacting in some unspecified manner with "Foreign Mobile" and "Foreign Web." Magpii is a project of Barr's own creation which stands for "Magnify Personal Identifying Information," involves social networking, and is designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users. Although details are difficult to determine from references in Barr's e-mails, he discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.

* There are sporadic references such things as "semantic analysis," "Latent Semantic Indexing," "specialized linguistics," and OPS, a programming language designed for solving problems using expert systems.

* Barr asks the team's partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists him as being from the company's Homeland Defense/National Programs division), to provide him "a contact at Pixar/Disney."

Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms - capabilities whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and stored in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be released to a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that the actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in addition to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited description available, with the program as a whole presumably being operated in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled by the U.S. and its partners.

Here's the team players:

* TASC (PMO, creative services)

* HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO)

* Akamai (infrastructure)

* Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning)

* Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics)

* Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services)

* Cipher (strategy, planning operations)

* PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic partners)

* Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development - long list of strategic partners)

* Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list of strategic partners)

* We are trying to schedule an interview with AT&T plus some other small app developers.

Two days after a briefing requirement meeting, the servers of HBGary and HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in retaliation for Barr's boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the movement's "leadership;" 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto the Internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.

Also according to Project PM, along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement, a close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned with the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way that they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN recompete, Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which his own company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for use by corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by clandestine and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of the companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are entirely correct.

That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced information warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by itself an extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch as that such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining largely unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and better "situational awareness" on entire populations while also being able to manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being misused is contradicted by even a brief review of history.

History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended its recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to fight terrorism and will never be used against American civilians. This is cold comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should Americans be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of ensuring that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general in Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on visiting senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war, an illegal act; only a few days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the public that such other psychological capabilities as persona management would never be used on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that such laws have been routinely broken by the military and intelligence community, who are now been joined in this practice by segments of the federal contracting industry.

It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a growing segment of the world's population. The powerful institutions that wield them will grow all the more powerful as they are provided better and better methods by which to monitor, deceive, and manipulate. The informed electorate upon which liberty depends will be increasingly misinformed. No tactical advantage conferred by the use of these programs can outweigh the damage that will be done to mankind in the process of creating them.

The complete Project PM announcement about Romas/COIN has been published.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: FBI Director’s Term Extension Ensures Neo-COINTELPRO Operations Will Prevail

The Development of "Privacy Killing Technologies"

Can the NSA and CIA use your phone to track your location?

Security Grifters Partner-Up on Sinister Cyber-Surveillance Project

How Software Updates Become "Hack" Patches

"Face" of Anonymous quits -- exclusive interview with Barrett Brown

Project PM Wiki - Upcoming

HBGary Email Viewer - Google

A sinister Cyber-surveillance Scheme Exposed

Risen: Govt Prying Into My Phone Records - TIs Heads Up!

By MARK SCHONE - Posting #151

James....phone records are not even the tip of the iceburg!

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen, who is fighting the government's attempt to force him to reveal his sources about CIA efforts to sabotage Iran's nuke program, says a subpoena ordering him to testify is the latest salvo in a campaign of government harassment that began under the BushFRAUD administration.

In a 22-page affidavit filed Tuesday, the New York Times reporter says the campaign of harassment apparently included tracking his ingoing and outgoing phone calls to "root out [my] confidential sources," a practice first reported by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito for ABC News in 2006.

"I have reason to believe that the story by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito is true," writes Risen. "I have learned from an individual who testified before a grand jury . . . that the Government had shown this individual copies of telephone records relating to calls made to and from me."

In 2006, Ross and Esposito reported that a senior law enforcement official had told them, "It's time for you to get some new cell phones," because phone calls of reporters at ABC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post were being tracked as part of a "widespread" CIA leak investigation. "I was mentioned by name as one of the reporters whose work the government was looking into," writes Risen.

READ the original ABC News report.

Risen submitted Tuesday's affidavit, which lists several examples of alleged harassment and intimidation, as part of a motion to kill a subpoena ordering him to testify at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Sterling has been indicted on 10 counts, including allegedly disclosing the information about Iran's nuclear program to Risen.

Risen has fought two previous attempts to compel him to testify against Sterling; the first subpoena was issued during the Bush administration. "This is a fight to defend the First Amendment and freedom of the press," Risen told ABC News, before referring ABC News to his attorney. Sources close to Risen say he is determined never to give up his sources even if that means going to jail.

Sterling, an ex-CIA operative, was indicted in December 2010 for allegedly giving Risen information about the CIA's attempt to use a Russian scientist to feed Iran faulty blueprints for a nuclear trigger device. The information about the operation, which Risen characterized as unsuccessful, ultimately appeared in his 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." It never appeared in the New York Times. An attorney for Sterling told ABC News that his client was innocent of the charges against him and would prove so in court. Sterling's trial is set to begin in September.

In his affidavit, Risen says that the Bush administration was "embarrassed" by what he disclosed in reports for the New York Times and in "State of War" about U.S. intelligence failures, warrantless wiretaps and domestic eavesdropping. "The Bush administration," claims Risen, "eventually singled me out as a target for political harassment." Risen said the Bush administration threatened to prosecute him under the Espionage Act and that a reliable source told him Vice President Dick Cheney pressured the Justice Department to "personally target me because he was unhappy with my reporting and wanted to see me in jail." He said he also received hate mail from pressure groups with White House ties and was picketed at his office by protestors who demanded his arrest.

After the publication of Risen's book, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales publicly raised the possibility of prosecuting journalists for leaks, and told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on "This Week" that prosecuting reporters was a "possibility." A Justice Department official then told the Senate, when asked, that the Justice Department had never previously prosecuted a journalist under the Espionage Act.

Risen argues in the affidavit that his reporting on Iran has served the public interest, because it may help keep the government from repeating its mistakes. "I believe I performed a vitally important public service by exposing the reckless and badly mismanaged nature of intelligence on Iran's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction, so that the national would not go to war once again based on flawed intelligence, as it had in Iraq.".......continued

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: Court Approved Wiretaps Reach a New All-Time High [PDF]

Leak Crackdown by Obama Administration

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic

The Social Superorganism And Its Global Brain

By F. Heylighen, C. Joslyn - Posting #150

Society can be viewed as a multicellular organism, with individuals in the role of the cells. The network of communication channels connecting individuals then plays the role of a nervous system for this superorganism, i.e. a "global brain".

It is an old idea, dating back at least to the ancient Greeks, that the whole of human society can be viewed as a single organism. Many thinkers have noticed the similarity between the roles played by different organizations in society and the functions of organs, systems and circuits in the body. For example, industrial plants extract energy and building blocks from raw materials, just like the digestive system. Roads, railways and waterways transport these products from one part of the system to another one, just like the arteries and veins. Garbage dumps and sewage systems collect waste products, just like the colon and the bladder. The army and police protect the society against invaders and rogue elements, just like the immune system.

Such initially vague analogies become more precise as the understanding of organisms increases. The concepts of systems theory provide a good framework for establishing a precise correspondence between organismic and societal functions. The fact that complex organisms, like our own bodies, are built up from individual cells, led to the concept of superorganism. If cells aggregate to form a multicellular organism, then organisms might aggregate to form an organism of organisms: a superorganism. Biologists agree that social insect colonies, such as ant nests or beehives, are best seen as such superorganisms. The activities of a single ant, bee or termite are meaningless unless they are understood in function of the survival of the colony.

Individual humans may seem similar to the cells of a social superorganism, but they are still much more independent than ants or cells (Heylighen & Campbell, 1995). This is especially clear if we look at the remaining competition, conflicts and misunderstandings between individuals and groups. Thus human society is still an ambivalent system, balancing between individual selfishness and collective responsibility. In that sense it may be more similar to organisms like slime molds or sponges, whose cells can live individually as well as collectively, than to true multicellular organisms. However, there seems to be a continuing trend towards global integration. As technological and social systems develop into a more closely knit tissue of interactions, transcending the old boundaries between countries and cultures, the social superorganism seems to turn from a metaphor into a reality. Although many people tend to see the super-organism philosophy as a totalitarian or collectivist ideology, the opposite is true: further integration will basically increase individual freedom and diversity.

Most recently, the technological revolution has produced a global communication network, which can be seen as a nervous system for this planetary being. As the computer network becomes more intelligent it starts to look more like a global brain or super-brain, with capabilities far surpassing those of individual people (see our page on learning, brain-like webs for an experimental approach to make the net more intelligent). This is part of an evolutionary transition to a higher level of complexity. A remaining question is whether this transition will lead to the integration of the whole of humanity, producing a human "super-being", or merely enhance the capabilities of individuals, thus producing a multitude of "meta-beings".

In order to study these different issues, the "Global Brain Group" has been created. Its members include most of the authors that have written on the subject. Their works and others are listed in the global brain bibliography. Their discussion have inspired a Global Brain FAQ, i.e. a list of answers to the most common questions raised by this subject.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: ARM Daddy Simulates Human Brain With Million-Chip Super

Direct Interfaces into the Global Brain

"INSIGHTS"

Journal Of Memetics

The Symbiotic Intelligence Project

The Principia Cybernetica Project Memetics Publications On The Web

What are Cybernetics and Systems Science?

Correspondence between Organism and Society

Multicellular Organisms

Insect Societies

Heylighen & Campbell, 1995

Human Society

Introduction to "Slime Molds"

Introduction to "Sponges"

The Superorganism: A Totalitarian Collective?

From World-Wide Web to Super-Brain

Learning Webs

The Metasystem Transition

What Is Complexity?

Super And/Or Meta-Being(s)

The Global Brain Group

The Global Brain/Superorganism

The Global Brain FAQ

Tapping the Global Brain to Innovate

The Internet Could Become Conscious By Mid-2030s :o

A Global Consciousness Meditation

Global Brain Paint: Visualizing The Activity Of The Collective Consciousness