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Facebook's Psychological Experiments Connected to Department of Defense Research on Civil Unrest

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Photo Credit: SCG News There has been quite a bit of chatter this past week after it was revealed that a recent Facebook outage was the result of a psychological experiment that the company conducted on a portion of its users without their permission. The experiment, which was described in a paper published by Facebook, and UCSF, tested the contagion of emotions on social media by manipulating the content of personal feeds and measuring how this impacted user behavior.

Over 600,000 users were used as guinea pigs without their consent, which raises a number of serious ethical and legal questions (particularly due to the fact that this study received federal funding), however there is an even more disturbing angle to this story. It turns out that this research was connected to a Department of Defense project called the Minerva Initiative, which funds universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world.

In the official credits for the study conducted by Facebook you’ll find Jeffrey T. Hancock from Cornell University. If you go to the Minerva initiative website you’ll find that Jeffery Hancock received funding from the Department of Defense for a study called “Cornell: Modeling Discourse and Social Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes”. If you go to the project site for that study you’ll find a visualization program that models the spread of beliefs and disease.

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Martin Armstrong Warns Civil Unrest Is Rising Everywhere: “This Won’t End Pretty”

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Photo Credit: Zero HedgeThe greatest problem we have is misinformation. People simply do not comprehend why and how the economic policies of the post-war era are imploding. This whole agenda of socialism has sold a Utopian idea that the State is there for the people yet it is run by lawyers following their own self-interest. The pensions created for those in government drive the cost of government up exponentially with time. The political forces blame the rich and this merely creates a class warfare with no resolution for the future. Even confiscating all the wealth of the so-called rich will not sustain the system. Consequently, we just have to crash and burn and start all over again.

The Guardian reported that some 50,000 people marched in London to protest against austerity. They cried: “Who is really responsible for the mess this country is in? Is it the Polish fruit pickers or the Nigerian nurses? Or is it the bankers who plunged it into economic disaster – or the tax avoiders? It is selective anger.”

The exploitation by the bankers has been really a disaster. They have been their own worst enemy and in the end, they have become the symbol that inspires class warfare if not revolution. They are not the representatives of those who produce jobs…

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Pentagon Studying Protesters to Prep for ‘Mass Civil Breakdown’

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Photo Credit: AP / Mary AltafferThe Department of Defense has disbursed some funds to universities so that scientists might study the dynamics of civil unrest — and how the U.S. military might best respond.

It’s called the “Minerva Research Initiative,” and it’s a program that was kicked off in 2008 to “improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.,” The Guardian reported.

More to point: the multi-million dollar research program seeks to uncover “warfighter-relevant insights” to help senior ranking officials in the “defense policy community” come up with “combatant commands” that work in civil unrest situations, The Guardian reported.

One area of study that’s planned for the 2014-2017 time frame partners Cornell University researchers with the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to come up with a model for the “dynamics of social movement mobilization and contagions,” the text of the program stated. That particular research area will ultimately determine the “critical mass (tipping point),” of civil uprisings, where protests turn violent, the program text states, The Guardian reported.

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Palin: Washington Buying Bullets For Us

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Photo Credit: WNDImagine the worst-case scenario if the sequester goes through. The market nosedives. The economy implodes. Empty shelves. Riots. The feds hit the streets in force to restore order in a “national emergency.”

Sounds like something in a Third World country or Greece. It could never happen here, right? Think again, says Sarah Palin.

The former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee believes the federal government is “stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.” Palin says the feds are afraid of what might happen if the sequester goes into effect.

She writes on her Facebook page: “If we are going to wet our proverbial pants over 0.3% in annual spending cuts when we’re running up trillion dollar annual deficits, then we’re done. Put a fork in us. We’re finished. We’re going to default eventually and that’s why the feds are stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.”

The sequester will trigger $85 billion in immediate cuts to federal funding and $1.2 over 10 years unless lawmakers reach a deal by Friday.

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DHS gearing up for “significant” unrest prior to presidential election

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Photo credit: vonderauvisuals

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered masses of riot gear equipment to prepare for potential significant domestic riots at the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration.

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities.”

The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Specifically, DHS is looking to obtain:
– “147 riot helmets” with “adjustable tactical face shield with liquid seal”
– “147 sets of upper body and shoulder protection”
– “152 sets of thigh and groin protection”
– “147 hard-shell shin guards” with “substantial protection from flying debris, non-ballistic weapons, and blows to the leg” and “optimized protective design for severe riot control or tactical situations.”
– “156 forearm protectors”
– “147 pairs of tactical gloves”
The riot gear will be worn by Federal Protective Service agents who are tasked with protecting property, grounds and buildings owned by the federal government.

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