Sandra Finley

Apr 092015
 

TBF writes:     Our police are not too far removed from this sit. in US  

I would prefer NOT to circulate the article.  However,  examples easily come to mind to support the arguments presented in the article below by Ted Baumann.  Just two supporting articles from a number:

 

 

 

We must get conversations going and each of us add people to our own little network.

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Police Militarization: The New Search and Seizure

http://thesovereigninvestor.com/diversified-investments/police-militarization-new-search-seizure/

As World War I drew to a close in November 1918, over 2.5 million soldiers of the Imperial German Army remained in the field. They brought training, experience and battle-hardened attitudes with them as they streamed back across Germany’s borders.

These soldaten soon found ways to deploy their skills at home. Supported by Minister of Defense Gustav Noske, right-wingers – including one Corporal Adolf Hitler – organized ex-soldiers into Freikorps, and armed them with surplus military weaponry. These militia brutally crushed Germany’s nascent post-war democratic movement. For the next 20 years, they provided the core of the feared Brownshirts, street thugs who helped Hitler and the Nazis into power.

Fast forward 100 years. Another faltering empire in domestic political crisis, the United States, brings its own frustrated warriors and their weapons back home . Become one of America’s “new rich”.  You no longer need a fancy degree or high-paying job to get rich in America. All you need to do is take advantage of this event now taking place across 32 states.

Brownshirts in America – far-fetched?  Not at all. They’re already here, this time dressed in black or camo. I’ve already told you about the militarization of our borderlands, using tactics drawn directly from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. I warned then that events there would soon affect you and me.

I was right. A few weeks ago, a police paramilitary unit raided a house not too far from my home in Atlanta, in search of a teenager suspected of dealing drugs. Upon breaking down the door, they lobbed a flash bang grenade into the crib of a two-year-old child, Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, blowing a hole in the infant’s chest. The teenager they were searching for – a relative in the family – did not even live in that house.

This is the norm in today’s America. The American Civil Liberties Union recently released a report documenting the explosive growth of paramilitary police forces like the one that assaulted Bou Bou. Originally intended for hostage situations and shootouts, police paramilitaries are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, largely for routine jobs such as search warrants or municipal code violations – all within our own borders.

These boys have some really nasty “toys.” Since the late 1980s, the Department of Defense’s Program 1033 has transferred tons of military-grade weaponry, including machine guns, tanks and aircraft, to state and local police departments, free of charge. As our Middle Eastern wars degenerated into counterinsurgencies, these weapons have become more and more oriented to the sort of urban “combat” that SWAT teams seem to think is their mission.

None of this would have happened, however, if America’s police hadn’t embraced the opportunity to go military with such gusto. Indeed, America’s police culture long ago abandoned any pretense at a Mayberry-style “Officer Friendly” approach. With few exceptions, police now see themselves as an occupying army, confronting a population where every individual is a potential “hostile.” Police routinely refer to their daily beats as “tours,” and to interaction with potential criminals as “combat.”

What accounts for this radical change in attitudes? Where’s Sheriff Andy Taylor? The influx of former military personnel into domestic policing jobs definitely plays a role. So too does the glorification of force that goes with being a militaristic empire surrounded by imagined enemies.

More important, however, is the profound change in the relationship between citizen and government in America since 9/11. In everything that matters, we citizens are no longer treated as the “employers” of civil servants like police, to whom they are accountable, but as the object of government’s efforts to impose its own independent will. From the National Security Agency to your local sheriff’s office, a sense of impunity and utter lack of accountability reigns supreme.

Aiding and Abetting

Today’s police are recruited and trained in a carefully cultivated atmosphere of us vs. them that treats the rest of us as potential threats to be neutralized, not as citizens to be served and protected. But every policeman in the country is theoretically accountable to representatives elected by the citizenry.

If America’s police are out of control, it’s because those elected officials aren’t doing their jobs. And that means we aren’t, either.

Many citizens of interwar Germany’s Weimar Republic craved “law and order” to such an extent that they were willing to overlook blatant abuses of basic rights and freedoms, as long as they were directed at “others.” Political opponents were deemed not to be “real Germans.” As political temperatures rose, the militaristic skills and attitudes developed on the Western and Eastern fronts of 1914-18 were increasingly substituted for democratic debate and process. Many Germans thought this was fine, because the ascendant forces seemed to favor their own interests.

Then came Hitler.  As the courageous theologian Martin Niemöller wrote shortly after his release from a Nazi concentration camp,

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

Americans would do well to meditate on Pastor Niemöller’s words. Too many of us are guilty of looking the other way as our politicians allow America’s police forces to morph into heavily armed, unaccountable paramilitary thugs.

Ultimately, however, it is unlikely that our political process will arrest this trend. That’s why it’s so important to emulate another group of Germans from the 1930s — those who left while there was still time — and escape America while you still can.

Kind regards,

Ted Baumann
Offshore and Asset Protection Editor

Apr 082015
 

 

To me,  the economic strategy paper below  for the defense industries, by McKinsey,  is a blueprint for  Obama’s Record Arms Sales . . . bizarre interview with CEO Lockheed Martin.

The economic argument:  the “defense” corporations should target areas of unrest in the world as the way to “grow” their sales of weapons.  The CEO of Lockheed Martin says it in these words:

MARILLYN HEWSON: Even if there may be some kind of deal that is done with Iran, there is volatility all around the region and each one of these countries believes they’ve got to protect their citizens and the things that we can bring to them help in that regard. So similarly, that’s the Middle East. And I know that’s what you asked about, but you can take that same argument to the Asia-Pacific region, which is another growth area for us. A lot of volatility, a lot of instability a lot of things that are happening both with North Korea as well as some of the tensions between China and Japan. So in both of those regions, which are growth areas for us, we expect that there is going to continue to be opportunities for us to bring our capabilities to them.

I remember being surprised by the SOFEX video.  Nations that produce weapons and various at-war factions are ALL together at the annual SOFEX arms bazaar in Jordan.  They all have booths to sell their wares and inter-mingle.  People who are supposedly at war with each other.  The video says the same thing as the Lockheed Martin CEO is saying (above, “bizarre conversation”).   The decision to arm other people is strictly one of self-interest, with no holds barred.  In spite of arms export control laws.  And often funded by Government “aid” (Americans in particular), as explained in the SOFEX video.

2014-07-21 A must see: The Business of War: SOFEX – YouTube

I wondered how in hades the CEO of Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson,  could arrive at a business plan that is based on taking advantage of “unrest”.  The plan is actually one to help de-stabilize the world.  I think I found the answer to my question (below).

This “training” is for people in the “defense” industries and military around the world.   Consider how it evolves:  The U.S. Government (people) don’t have more money for war, not with debt currently at more than $18 trillion dollars and steadily growing.    Their society is in tatters because the resources are funneled OUT of the communities to pay for war (i.e. to pay the bills submitted by Lockheed Martin and colleagues).  AND NOW, to top it all off,  with the flow to the trough being slowed down,  theses corporations are heading offshore, big time.  Gotta have “growth”.  And rest assured – Canadians are not distinguishablfe from Koreans or Japanese or Chinese (some of the targeted nations for “growth” because of increasing tensions.

We have to join hands with American citizens to stop these insane people.  The military-industrial-government-university complex is doing to Canada exactly what they have already done to the U.S.A.   Corruption of democracy is the name of the game.

And by the way,  Hewson was talking with Deutsche Bank analyst Myles Walton.  She was telling him why Lockheed Martin is a good investment.  It would be great if the German people could lend a hand here.   Stop Deutsche Bank from investing in Lockheed Martin.

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 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/public_sector/strategy_scenarios_and_the_global_shift_in_defense_power?cid=mckinsey_on_defense-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1304

 

Strategy, scenarios, and the global shift in defense power
As the strategic landscape shifts, an economic-scenario approach can help defense organizations grapple with uncertainty.

 

April 2013| by Jonathan Ablett and Andrew Erdmann

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THIS IS THE END OF THE PAPER:

From an aerospace and defense executive’s perspective, such questions could include the following:

•Which markets will matter most for a company’s growth in the next ten years? What should be the relative balance among developed and developing markets in its portfolio?

•What does the possible emergence of India and Saudi Arabia among the world’s top five defense spenders suggest for a company’s strategic priorities?

•How should a company manage the diversity of regulations and laws related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and local content provisions as it seeks to expand into specific developing markets? How should it manage its defense and civilian aerospace businesses in such markets in light of other diplomatic and commercial considerations? What innovative joint ventures, mergers, or other collaborations will fuel growth among aerospace and defense companies based in different countries?

•How should a company leverage the continued robust R&D base in Europe, Japan, and the United States to serve both developed and developing aerospace and defense markets?

•How will developing countries’ aerospace and defense industries “go global” and compete directly against more established Western players in defense markets around the world in the coming decade? What are the implications for Western companies’ strategies, operations, and costs if many systems are produced for emerging markets?

•What should be a company’s global manufacturing footprint in light of these trends and uncertainties in the coming decade?

•What skills and talent will a company need to succeed in the changed global defense landscape?

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TEXT OF THE PAPER – RECOMMEND GOING TO THE URL IF YOU WISH TO READ IT ALL.   I didn’t try to copy the graphs.

The art of strategy, in defense as elsewhere, involves understanding possible futures to inform present decisions. Change, volatility, and uncertainty are perennial challenges to the defense strategist and are likely to increase in the coming years. Formulating strategy in these conditions will test planners in the public and private sectors alike.

To succeed, decision makers should look behind the headlines of the day to ask the right questions about what will affect their organization in the future. This requires considering the deeper underlying trends that will reshape the strategic landscape in the years ahead. Foremost among them is the shift in global economic power. Although often commented upon by economists and pundits, many strategists focused on defense issues have not fully internalized this historic shift and its implications.

Here we offer a perspective on how strategists in defense organizations and aerospace and defense companies should approach this challenge. First, we describe how the profound shift in economic power since the end of the Cold War has already reshaped the world’s strategic landscape, including the distribution of global defense spending. The potential evolution of these economic dynamics is fundamental to strategy. Predicting their future is, of course, impossible. Instead, we offer something more modest and practical: a new approach to scenario planning that is rooted in a deep understanding of global economics. Such an understanding reveals the potential for unexpected scale and pace in the shift of defense spending from the United States and its treaty allies1 to emerging economies.

 

The strategic landscape reshaped, 1991-2012

 

The past 20 years saw dramatic changes on the battlefield, even as some features endured, and the beginnings of an equally dramatic shift in economic power. In combination, these movements have altered the strategic landscape, and provide a glimpse into the future.

 

Continuity and change in military operations

 

For the world’s defense and security organizations, history certainly did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the cessation of the Cold War in 1991. We have since seen conflict on almost every continent, from the last major tank battle of the 20th century at 73 Easting in the Gulf War to numerous wars, clashes, and insurgencies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, attention has focused on the greater Middle East—Afghanistan, Iraq, and, increasingly, the struggles for control and influence in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

 

The tempo of military operations has been relentless. Since 1991, for instance, the United States has embarked upon a new military intervention roughly every two years. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces have been at war in Afghanistan for over a decade. South Korean and Japanese forces have deployed for the first time to the Middle East. Meanwhile, the United Nations has launched a new peacekeeping operation every six months. Moreover, the duration of most of these operations has increased to five to ten years.2

 

Innovations in military technology and operations have marked these past two decades of conflict. Precision-guided munitions have evolved and demonstrated their effectiveness in conflicts beginning with the Gulf War and continuing in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and most recently NATO’s Operation Unified Protector in Libya in 2011. Advanced missiles now pose particular threats to capital ships and fixed bases. Unmanned aerial vehicles (or remotely piloted air systems) are now standard components in many militaries’ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) tool kits, and they increasingly serve as weapons platforms as well. Harnessing big data and employing advanced analytic techniques are other features of 21st century ISR. Cyberwarfare has moved from theory to practice.3

 

Militaries today confront adversaries who employ a full spectrum of tactics, from conventional to irregular and even criminal (“hybrid war”). Modern navies, for instance, cope with traditional and unconventional foes, including Somali pirates and asymmetrical threats such as terrorist suicide speedboats. Air forces are investing in fifth-generation fighters even as they continue to provide workhorse logistical support for operations in the field. And for foot soldiers, despite the numerous technical advances in communications and equipment, the past decade has been largely spent relearning the lessons of counterinsurgency: “Walk. Stop by, don’t drive by. . . .Situational awareness can only be gained by interacting face-to-face, not separated by ballistic glass or Oakleys.”4 Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

The power shift begins

 

Concurrent with these tactical and operational developments, tectonic plates moved at a deeper strategic level. A profound shift in economic power began during this period—one that has already manifested itself in the distribution of traditional “hard” military power among the great powers. This shift will continue to reshape the strategic landscape in the years ahead.

 

Future historians will likely point to 2007–08 as an inflection point in global history. For the first time in over two centuries—since the start of the Industrial Revolution—the majority of the world’s economic growth took place in the developing world, driven in large part by China, India, and other Asian economies. In addition to favorable demographics and reforms to open emerging economies, increasing urbanization—especially in China—drove much of this growth. Significantly, 2008 was also the first time ever that a majority of people lived in cities. The pace of urbanization is staggering. More than 1.3 million people migrate every week to urban areas. And this historic migration will likely continue unabated for the next two decades, mainly in the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America, and, increasingly, Africa.5 The global economic crisis that began in 2008 accelerated this shift in economic power from developing to emerging economies, as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) weathered the storm well and the developed economies of the United States, Europe, and Japan suffered and remain vulnerable more than four years later. Between 2009 and 2012, China’s economy grew over 30 percent and India’s 22 percent in real terms, whereas Germany’s grew 7.9 percent and the United States’s 7.1 percent.6 And in 2008, for the first time, a Chinese company led the world in international patent applications.

 

Taken together, economic and demographic forces drove the most rapid shift in human history in what the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) calls the “economic center of gravity”—the geographic midpoint of global economic activity (Exhibit 1). MGI projects this movement to continue, at a slightly slower pace, for the next 15 years or so, when, by this measure, most of the regional imbalances ushered in by the Industrial Revolution will have been erased.

 

Exhibit 1

 

The ten years from 2000 to 2010 saw the fastest-ever shift in the world’s economic center of gravity.

 

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These economic trends have already started to reshape the global landscape of defense spending. To be sure, a nation’s assessment of its security threats plays a critical role in shaping its defense spending in the near term. That said, a major country’s military power flows in large part from its underlying economic strength over the medium to long term: the faster a country’s economy grows, the more likely its defense spending will increase as well. Despite widely different geopolitical complexities and economic dynamics, the countries with the largest defense budgets, which account for the vast majority of the world’s defense expenditures, have fit this pattern since 1991 (Exhibit 2).

 

Exhibit 2

 

Growth in military spending and GDP are correlated over the long term.

 

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Other more subtle shifts in national power were also taking place between 1991 and 2011. R&D expenditures in all major economies nearly doubled in constant 2011 dollar terms, rising from roughly $740 billion in 1991 to $1.5 trillion in 2011. But just as we saw in defense spending, countries’ R&D investments mirrored trends in their overall economic growth. Europe and Japan’s combined share of global R&D expenditures declined by 11 percent in the 20 years after 1991. Meanwhile, China increased its share of global spending to 9 percent from 1 percent during the same period. Developing countries are thus emerging as true competitors to the developed economies not only with regard to their economies’ sheer scale but also their innovation and technical prowess.7 R&D spending matters: a country’s R&D investments are strongly correlated with the quality of the military’s equipment 25 years later.8 This suggests that in the future, developing countries will narrow the gap in quality between their military equipment and that of developed countries.

 

Glimpses of the future

 

We have seen these dynamics play out around the world since 1991. Sustained operations and the increasing costs of modern weapons platforms have proved too much for many Western governments and their publics as they manage the aftermath of the global economic crisis and structural strains in their aging societies. For example, the United Kingdom’s 2010 Defence and Security Review declared bluntly that its “inherited defense spending plans… [are] completely unaffordable” and that it needs to “confront the legacy of overstretch.”9 France’s earlier national-security review analyzed the changing strategic context and new priorities and thus, through a different logic, reached similar conclusions. The US Department of Defense (DOD), under Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, launched its own efficiencies campaign, which has accelerated under his successors. The planned reductions in the US defense budget in the next decade are literally on the scale of some countries’ GDPs. Other Western militaries are undergoing similar retrenchments. At the same time, however, China, other East Asian countries, India, Brazil, and other emerging economies have continued to increase not only their defense expenditures in real terms, as shown in Exhibit 3, but also, in many cases, the sophistication of their own defense industries.

 

 

 

Exhibit 3

 

 

Developing countries have closed the gap in defense spending since the end of the Cold War.

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Today, the United States remains the world’s preeminent military power in scale, sophistication, battle-tested experience, and global reach. US defense spending in 2011 was more than five times that of the next highest defense spender, China. America’s traditional allies also occupy important positions in the global defense landscape. Japan, France, and the United Kingdom ranked third, fourth, and fifth in defense spending in 2011. The momentum, however, is unmistakable: emerging economies are positioned to displace the other developed economies in the top tier of defense spenders. China’s rise in defense spending is starkest. In 2011 it spent $126 billion, more than twice as much as the countries that are the next largest spenders: Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia.10 Chinese authorities announced in March 2013 that they plan to increase defense spending another 10.7 percent in 2013.11

 

The direction is clear. Developed economies—and the world’s leading military establishments historically—have experienced relative decline vis-à-vis the major developing economies since 1991. Yet the scale, scope, and pace of change of the shift in economic power cannot be simply extrapolated from the recent past to understand the future. Instead, strategists will require a new approach to manage this era’s particular strategic uncertainties.

 

An economic-scenario approach

 

Scenario planning is an established tool for business and defense strategists.12 Done right, scenario planning accounts for the major variables or drivers that could shape the future, in sufficient depth and vividness to enable strategists to draw out potential implications for the strategy and plans of their organizations. Scenarios are not meant to be predictive or comprehensive, covering all possible futures. Rather, the goals are to define a range of possibilities and identify important continuities among them, as well as significant uncertainties or risks that a strategy should address. Such an analysis, in turn, helps to frame critical questions and generate strategic insights that then shape the strategic decisions of today and adaptation tomorrow.

 

Today, defense scenarios typically start with geopolitical, security, or more operational assumptions or with a statement of guiding objectives (such as “Counter violent extremism, deter and defeat aggression, strengthen international and regional security, and shape the future force”; “US forces must be prepared to fight ‘two and a half’ wars simultaneously”; or “Blue Force must be ready to counter Red Force in country X”). For example, the US DOD’s recent strategy documents—the February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Report and the February 2011 National Military Strategy of the United States—briefly review the changing strategic environment but do not offer alternative scenarios. The importance of this era’s economic forces, however, suggests that a different approach, one with a more explicit grounding in these new economic realities, is needed. National-security strategies typically do not explore the full implications of the shift in economic power now under way.13 The approach outlined here is designed to address this gap. The development of rich, sophisticated scenarios for the future course of the global economy provides its starting point. These scenarios, in turn, enable the mapping of changes in countries’ economic power in relative and absolute terms. The trends most immediately relevant for defense and security organizations—especially levels of defense spending and R&D investment—are then built upon these economic foundations.

 

We use a set of economic scenarios for the next decade built with McKinsey’s Global Growth Model (GGM)14 to illustrate this approach. The GGM is a database and modeling tool that supports the construction of detailed economic scenarios down to the country level. Its variables span GDP and more than 100 others, including demographics, education levels, public debt, R&D investments, and urbanization rates.15

 

The baseline economic scenarios employed here are predicated on the assumption that major developed and emerging economies will develop with different growth rates—namely, developing economies will tend to grow at a significantly higher rate than developed economies. We emphasize these different outcomes and groups because, broadly speaking, the challenges faced by countries in each group are similar. Generally, advanced economies have struggled not only with the aftermath of the 2008 downturn but also with meeting their aging populations’ multifaceted challenges. Meanwhile, emerging markets have tried to sustain or accelerate growth through export promotion, the allocation of capital, continued economic reform, urbanization and industrialization, and other tactics.

 

The relative performance of these different groups of economies thus describes a range of four principal scenarios. The GGM scenarios are bounded by emerging markets’ growth rates (between 3 and 7 percent per year from 2013 to 2022) and advanced economies’ growth at 1 to 3 percent annually. These growth rates define four broad-based scenarios shown in Exhibit 4: Global Growth Renewed, Advanced Economies Rebound, Emerging Economies Lead, and Global Lost Decade.16

 

 

 

Exhibit 4

 

 

Four scenarios describe possible paths for the global economy from 2013 to 2022.

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Together, these scenarios portray different potential future international landscapes and balances of economic power among the major economies. They make clear that the stakes are extraordinarily high for the health of the entire global economy. While growth continues across all scenarios, the difference in total global real GDP between the most favorable scenario ($100 trillion, under Global Growth Renewed) and the least favorable one ($84.5 trillion, under Global Lost Decade) is a staggering $15 trillion per year in 2022. That is roughly equivalent to the US economy today.

 

The scenarios also have quite different outcomes for the relative distribution of economic power among countries. Across all scenarios, the US economy remains the world’s largest economy. China’s rapid growth continues, but by 2022, it still does not equal the size of the US economy today. The absolute gap between the two narrows more or less depending on the scenario. The other major developing economies follow a similar pattern; Europe and Japan experience steady growth in the most favorable scenarios and stagnation in those that are less favorable.

 

Defense-spending scenarios to 2022

 

The four baseline economic scenarios paint very different possible futures for the world’s major economies—and thus for their self-confidence, internal political stability, and the vision of their roles internationally. Geopolitical relations (for example, strains among past allies over burden sharing or opportunities for new alignments among rising powers) would also vary under the different scenarios.17

 

To understand these implications, we analyzed global defense spending under the economic scenarios. We focus our analysis on the top 15 defense spenders in 2011. These countries account for the lion’s share of global defense spending under any scenario (that is, nearly 85 percent in 2011) for the sake of simplicity. As mentioned, growth in countries’ defense spending is strongly correlated (r-squared equals 0.84) with their underlying economic growth over longer periods of time. Therefore, we use each scenario’s estimate of countries’ real GDP and a country-specific correlation between defense spending and GDP to derive the percentage of each nation’s real GDP devoted to defense spending in 2022 under each scenario.18

 

The likely changes in countries’ relative share of global defense spending between 2011 and 2022 are striking (Exhibit 5). If we divide the 15 countries studied into the United States and its 9 treaty allies, and the emerging BRIC countries and Saudi Arabia, we see that while the US and its allies still account for the majority of defense spending in all scenarios in 2022, their relative advantage is eroded in all scenarios by emerging markets’ higher rates of economic growth. Most dramatically, in the Emerging Economies Lead scenario, the United States and its treaty allies’ relative advantage in global share of defense spending falls by 23 percentage points in a decade, dropping to 55 percent by 2022.

 

Exhibit 5

 

A substantial share of global defense spending will shift away from the United States and its traditional allies.

 

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The scenarios likewise suggest dramatic shifts in defense spending in absolute terms. Defense spending in the BRIC countries and Saudi Arabia will increase significantly in all scenarios—from roughly $290 billion in 2011 to between approximately $550 billion and $830 billion by 2022 (in constant 2011 dollars). The fate of the United States and its major treaty allies’ defense spending is mixed, however. When the major developed economies fare well, their combined defense spending increases from a little over $1 trillion in 2011 to more than $1.4 trillion in 2022; when they fare poorly, in the Global Lost Decade and Emerging Economies Lead scenarios, their combined defense spending falls below $1 trillion by 2022.

 

Exploring these scenarios for individual countries again shows shifts in defense spending away from the developed economies. Consider the top five defense spenders in each scenario (Exhibit 6). The United States and China maintain their one-two positions in total defense spending in all scenarios. In those scenarios in which US economic growth remains sluggish throughout the coming decade, its defense spending falls more than 15 percent in real terms. The United States’s relative advantage in defense spending over China, however, declines significantly from 5.4x in 2011 to between 3.2x and 1.6x in 2022. India enters the ranks of the world’s top five defense spenders in all scenarios (see “A bright future for India’s defense industry?” [PDF–417KB]). Russia and Saudi Arabia round out the top five defense spenders in three of the four scenarios. Only in the Advanced Economies Rebound scenario do France and the United Kingdom—two of the US treaty partners—remain in the top five.

 

Exhibit 6

 

The difference between the two biggest defense spenders varies widely by scenario.

 

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Considering total R&D investments across the different countries provides a rough measure of the dynamism of high-technology industries and innovation, and, as noted above, an indication of long-term trends in the quality of the military equipment the country makes (Exhibit 7).

 

 

 

Exhibit 7

 

 

The combined European, Japanese, and US share of global R&D investment will shrink in any scenario.

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Our scenarios show overall R&D investments tracking the trends seen in defense spending but at different rates. The United States retains its leadership position but by less than before, as emerging economies gain ground on the United States and its traditional allies. Most important, China’s investments in R&D accelerate in the next ten years; in all scenarios, China more than doubles its share of global R&D investment. In the coming decade, we should expect China to place second only to the United States in total R&D investments, just as it became the world’s second-biggest defense spender in the previous decade. China’s rise in R&D is stunning: in all scenarios, it will increase its share of global R&D from roughly $1 of every $100 in 1991 to $1 of $5 spent in 2022. In doing so, it surpasses both Europe and Japan; their investments grow slowly in all scenarios. That said, Europe and Japan will remain major centers of global R&D into the 2020s because of their relatively robust starting point. Meanwhile, Brazil, India, and Russia also gain share, though at a much slower pace than China, and they will continue to lag behind Europe and Japan by a significant margin in 2022 (for example, Japan’s R&D spending will remain roughly five times India’s across the scenarios).

 

This economic-scenario approach enables strategists to assess other underlying factors should a particular analysis require it. These include public-debt burdens (for instance, high for most developed economies, with exceptions such as Australia), subtle variations among some countries’ relative performance (for example, South Korea consistently punches above its weight with regard to defense spending and R&D), education levels (for instance, other countries continue to narrow the US lead in average number of years of education per person), and demographic trends.19

 

From using scenarios to framing the right question

 

Decision makers in ministries of defense and corporate boardrooms require analytic tools to help them manage uncertainties. Without them, they risk falling prey to misguided confidence in a single, clear, but almost certainly erroneous prediction of the future, or they will be forced to rely on their gut. The economic-scenario approach outlined here is one such tool for the strategist’s tool kit.

 

The economic-scenario approach highlights how the global strategic landscape may change in the coming decade. Such scenarios can help organizations identify the specific potential opportunities, risks, trade-offs, and outcomes that their strategies should consider. From a defense official’s perspective, such questions could include the following:

•What does it mean for the United States when the defense spending of its traditional treaty allies will continue to decline in relative, and perhaps absolute, terms? What capabilities might these allies be able to deploy in the future? What new security relationships might be needed to manage the shifting balance of defense power? What might be the implications of such shifts for US force structure, overseas basing, and diplomacy?

•What does it mean for European countries’ role in the world as their relative share of defense power shrinks? Will NATO’s role in the world correspondingly retract? Will NATO’s “out of area” operations become a thing of the past? Will individual European countries have effective expeditionary forces in the 2020s, or will limitations force them to decide among increased dependence on US support (for example, logistical and lift support), increased defense cooperation within Europe, and disengagement from traditional areas of influence such as Africa? What might be the implications of these different scenarios for the future affordability of independent nuclear-deterrence forces in France and the United Kingdom?

•What does the wide range of possibilities for US defense spending in 2022 mean for Asian countries? How will such uncertainties shape their defense postures and diplomacy toward the United States, and one another?

•What does it mean for emerging countries that for the next decade the United States will remain the global leader in military spending and R&D investments despite those countries’ rapid growth? How relevant will European powers be in their strategic calculus? What security relationships should they prioritize to cope with the shifting strategic landscape?

 

From an aerospace and defense executive’s perspective, such questions could include the following:

•Which markets will matter most for a company’s growth in the next ten years? What should be the relative balance among developed and developing markets in its portfolio?

•What does the possible emergence of India and Saudi Arabia among the world’s top five defense spenders suggest for a company’s strategic priorities?

•How should a company manage the diversity of regulations and laws related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and local content provisions as it seeks to expand into specific developing markets? How should it manage its defense and civilian aerospace businesses in such markets in light of other diplomatic and commercial considerations? What innovative joint ventures, mergers, or other collaborations will fuel growth among aerospace and defense companies based in different countries?

•How should a company leverage the continued robust R&D base in Europe, Japan, and the United States to serve both developed and developing aerospace and defense markets?

•How will developing countries’ aerospace and defense industries “go global” and compete directly against more established Western players in defense markets around the world in the coming decade? What are the implications for Western companies’ strategies, operations, and costs if many systems are produced for emerging markets?

•What should be a company’s global manufacturing footprint in light of these trends and uncertainties in the coming decade?

•What skills and talent will a company need to succeed in the changed global defense landscape?

 

Asking the right questions is the starting point for any strategy. We are now living through an unprecedented shift in global economic power. No one can predict precisely what this means for our future. Robust economic scenarios, however, can help strategists frame the right questions and trade-offs for their organizations, which is more helpful than aspiring to predict that which defies prediction.

 

 

About the authors

 

Jonathan Ablett is a consultant with the McKinsey Global Institute, and Andrew Erdmann is a principal in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office.

 

The authors wish to thank Cody Newman for his assistance with this article.

Apr 082015
 

CBC Victoria interviewed a professor  about making vaccinations
mandatory. I was bothered by the interview because the interviewer
(who is usually very good) did not do a good job, in my opinion, of
presenting the other side of the story. There was little attempt to
understand the source of the resistance to vaccinations.

I have paid a bit of attention to the same debate in the U.S. which has
been on-going for quite a long time, people organizing at the state
level to prevent mandatory vaccinations. The efforts centre in the
North Eastern states – – Vermont being one.

From my perspective a significant problem is complexity. The media
and the public attention typically address an issue on a narrow basis,
which does not serve well in this instance. I will elaborate. …

A second significant problem is scientific certainty, a good example of
which is/was the medical certainty that ulcers are caused by
stress. For 10 years a scientist, Dr.Barry Marshall, presented
“science” (rational) to show that ulcers are caused by an organism.
In the end he was reduced to drinking a beaker of liquid that contained
the bacteria – – it was the only way to get the erroneous “scientific
certainty” changed.

It is no easier to get a full and informed debate
around vacinations, especially with the financial interests and
propaganda of Big Pharma added in.

COMPLEXITY OF THE VACCINATION QUESTION

Answer this question: which of the elements are more toxic than
mercury? (none, and you might typically look to radioactive
materials if you want to find something more poisonous)

What has mercury got to do with vaccinations? … “mer” in the
name of a concoction often indicates a mercury-based substance.
Thimerasol. Used as a preservative in some vaccines. Less now in
North America, after growing awareness that the pharmaceutical
companies use it. (They still use it in vaccines shipped overseas to
help “poor people”.)

The use of thimerasol (ethyl mercury) in vaccines, with more and more
vaccinations administered to younger and younger infants (the end of
the 80’s, beginning of the 90’s) was exacerbated by another
problem. Something like 80% of the North American population has
carried mercury in their mouths since sometime in childhood – – for
decades once you get to my age (“silver” fillings – – dental
amalgam). The science is clear (University of Calgary has done
some of the most compelling research on this) – – the mercury
off-gases, it accumulates in the body, crosses the placental barrier
and because it accumulates in fatty tissue, is ALSO transmitted to
the infant through breast milk. (Because the link between mercury
fillings and poisoning of the foetus are known, pregnant Mothers are
advised to forego dental treatment that in any way involves mercury
fillings.)

This is some of the complexity that the scientific community avoids:
an infant is hit with mercury in utero, gets continuing strong doses if
a breast-feeding Mother has mercury fillings – – AND THEN, to top it
off, the developing infant may (did) receive more mercury by direct
injection in the form of the thimerasol in vaccines. There are
plenty of sources – – let me provide just this one:

I don’t know what you think of Robert F Kennedy Jr. I have read some
of his work and attended a lecture he gave. To me he comes from the
same mold as his Father, Robert Kennedy. Their number one drive is
to serve the public interest (which cost Robt Kennedy his life).
They are/were altruistic people. Robert Kennedy is a lawyer and
an activist. He does solid work and is more credible than the
vaccine manufacturers like GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, or Wyeth.

I am disposed to believe his account (I don’t particularly like the
place where this is published, but never mind – – he is the author, he
is the messenger):
2009-07-25 Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity by Robert F Kennedy Jr (Role
of Big Pharma)

You will be too young to know, and I doubt it would have been
discussed at Med School: the attempts by GloxoKleinSmith to get a
vaccine for rotavirus registered. The doctors who spoke in support
were appalling, nothing more than schills. Three or four babies die
per year from rotavirus (diarrhea) in the U.S. They die from
ignorance, the parents don’t know to keep the baby with diarrhea hydrated. Big Pharma
likes mandatory vaccination – – the Government picks up the tab.
. : 2010-01-06 2009 – Rotavirus vaccine, contaminated with a pig
virus, injected into more than a million kids in the U.S. alone.

Also,  numbers on the rise in autism, the work of Dr Stephanie Cave.

I hope the preceding is useful.
Call if you have questions I might be able to help with.

THE ABOVE IS IN REPLY TO:

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 21:48:40 -0600,
>
> We heard there were 7 more cases of measles reported today in the
> Niagara region. The CBC coverage of the issue is excellent. Despite
> this information, many parents still don’t trust the scientific
> evidence, including my cousin Sandra  (INSERT:  me). By copy of this e-mail, we’ll
> ask Sandra to explain her views about the dangers of vaccinating
> children….
>

Apr 082015
 

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now.   I find this to be a stunning video.

 

A few perspectives are addressed: http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/04/08/are-obamas-record-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-yemen-egypt-and-iraq-fueling-unrest-in-middle-east/  

 

Canada is now entangled with U.S. foreign policy. Pay attention to what’s going down!  Due to “a slight blip in Pentagon procurement” U.S. arms dealers are looking to international “growth markets.”  (In the Lockheed Martin example, increase it from 20 to 25% of sales)

I would add to the analysis:  Take a look at this “Report”.   It’s a blueprint, an economic analysis that advocates what the “bizarre interview” with Lockheed Martin CEO talks about.    Strategy, scenarios, and the global shift in defense power .

So, after the war industry has bled America dry and trashed their international reputation, these corporations are now targeting areas of “unrest” to sell arms into. After the Middle East comes the Asia-Pacific region.

By the time they‘re finished we should each have our own personal drone from which to terrorize our “enemies”. Listen to the video – – these people (LOckheed CEO) are high on something . . . or maybe they’re imported aliens.

Pay attention because Lockheed Martin is working very hard in the Canadian “growth market”. Reminds me of an earlier email: Lockheed Martin is desperate – – to get our money! And what is the cost of one F-35 stealth bomber?

 

EXCERPT FROM THE VIDEO

AMY GOODMAN: I’d like to ask about a recent exchange between Deutsche Bank analyst Myles Walton and Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Marillyn Hewson during an earnings call in January. Financial industry analysts use earnings calls as an opportunity to ask publicly-traded corporations like Lockheed about issues that might harm profitability. Hewson said that Lockheed was hoping to increase sales and that both the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region were “growth markets.”

MARILLYN HEWSON: Even if there may be some kind of deal that is done with Iran, there is volatility all around the region and each one of these countries believes they’ve got to protect their citizens and the things that we can bring to them help in that regard. So similarly, that’s the Middle East. And I know that’s what you asked about, but you can take that same argument to the Asia-Pacific region, which is another growth area for us. A lot of volatility, a lot of instability a lot of things that are happening both with North Korea as well as some of the tensions between China and Japan. So in both of those regions, which are growth areas for us, we expect that there is going to continue to be opportunities for us to bring our capabilities to them.

AMY GOODMAN: During the call, Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson, who you were just listening to, also noted that 20 percent of Lockheed’s sales in 2014 were international, that is, to non-American customers. She added, Lockheed has set a goal to get to 25 percent over the next few years. Can you talk about the significance of this, Bill Hartung?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, there’s been a slight blip in Pentagon procurement. Still quite high, but the companyies need to grow constantly. And so they’re looking to up foreign sales to make up for any reductions at the Pentagon. As we heard in the clip, they’re looking to areas of conflict. And it’s not surprising, but I’m surprised that she said it so explicitly. She was asked about the Iran question, would that depress the market. She basically said, oh, there’s plenty of turbulence there, don’t worry about it, as there is in East Asia, these will be our growth markets. So she is more or less acknowledging they thrive on war and the threat of war, which is not surprising to a lot of people, but nonetheless, to say it like that, I think is a bit shocking. To just put it right out there.

AARON MATÉ: I want to ask you about drones. Earlier this year, the White House announced it will allow foreign allies to purchase U.S. made armed drones for the first time. Under a new policy American firms can sell their drones abroad, but will be subjected to a case-by-case review. Talk about this policy. Your were very critical of it. . . .

Apr 082015
 

Have a listen, music video, the rockin’ party music for May 23rd .   You’ll like it, even if you can’t march!

Time to get groups up and going.  Doesn’t take much.  Ask, if you need help.  A call to some friends,  name a date, time and place for people to congregate for the March.  Keep it short – an hour is lots. Some people will bring signs.  Turn on the music and way you go!  It’s a great way to create awareness, conversation and build community solidarity.

The sharing of information about GMOs since the first March (May, 2013) is incredible. The Marches are mostly organized through facebook groups.   In two years MAM has accomplished more than the oldies like myself accomplished in ten years!   Hallelujah! For the young people!

IS THERE A MARCH NEAR YOU?

I will update:   List of March Against Monsanto’s (MAM’s), No to GMO, & GE Free Groups, emphasis on Canada 

 

DO YOU WANNA “MARCH”?   (a great time to meet your friends!)

You might have to set up a facebook group for your community, if there isn’t one. Best way for others to find you and join in.

THE MUSIC VIDEO:

Ron Fuller 7:10am Apr 8

We have them “on the ropes!” But we need a Knockout Punch! And the only way to do that is for each of us to invite 10 to 20 people to our local March Against Monsanto, May 23, 2015, and exponentially grow this mother! and this time, yes this time……together……WE!….. W I L L R O C K M O N S A T O ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9l5RJTegkU

WE WILL ROCK MONSANTO Ron FullerTIME IS SHORT! We Must Stop Monsanto Now! Now before our rights, our freedoms and our access to the …
Apr 072015
 

http://robertreich.org/post/115695610915 

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest, “Beyond Outrage,” is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His new film, “Inequality for All,” is now available on Netflix, iTunes, DVD, and On Demand.

In Washington’s “think-tank” study on inequality, they fail to mention how big corporations and Wall Street have weakened the nation’s labor and antitrust laws. So whose side is Washington really on?

Published: April 7, 2015 | Authors:

Robert Reich | NationofChange | Op-Ed

A non-profit group devoted to voting rights decides it won’t launch a campaign against big money in politics for fear of alienating wealthy donors.

A Washington think-tank releases a study on inequality that fails to mention the role big corporations and Wall Street have played in weakening the nation’s labor and antitrust laws, presumably because the think tank doesn’t want to antagonize its corporate and Wall Street donors.

A major university shapes research and courses around economic topics of interest to its biggest donors, notably avoiding any mention of the increasing power of large corporations and Wall Street on the economy. It’s bad enough big money is buying off politicians. It’s also buying off nonprofits that used to be sources of investigation, information, and social change, from criticizing big money.

Other sources of funding are drying up. Research grants are waning. Funds for social services of churches and community groups are growing scarce.

Legislatures are cutting back university funding. Appropriations for public television, the arts, museums, and libraries are being slashed.

So what are non-profits to do?

“There’s really no choice,” a university dean told me. “We’ve got to go where the money is.”

And more than at any time since the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, the money is now in the pockets of big corporations and the super wealthy.

So the presidents of universities, congregations, and think tanks, other nonprofits are now kissing wealthy posteriors as never before.

But that money often comes with strings.

When Comcast, for example, finances a nonprofit like the International Center for Law and Economics, the Center supports Comcast’s proposed merger with Time Warner.

When the Charles Koch Foundation pledges $1.5 million to Florida State University’s economics department, it stipulates that a Koch-appointed advisory committee will select professors and undertake annual evaluations.

The Koch brothers now fund 350 programs at over 250 colleges and universities across America. You can bet that funding doesn’t underwrite research on inequality and environmental justice.

David Koch’s $23 million of donations to public television earned him positions on the boards of two prominent public-broadcasting stations. It also guaranteed that a documentary critical of the Kochs didn’t air.

As Ruby Lerner, president and founding director of Creative Capital, a grantmaking institution for the arts, told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, “selfcensorship” practiced by public television … raises issues about what public television means. They are in the middle of so much funding pressure.”

David Koch has also donated tens of millions of dollars to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and sits on their boards.

A few weeks ago dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups asked that museums of science and natural history “cut all ties” with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions … they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” their statement said.

Even though gift agreements by universities, museums, and other nonprofits often bar donors from being involved in decisions about what’s investigated or shown, such institutions don’t want to bite hands that feed them. This isn’t a matter of ideology. Wealthy progressives can exert as much quiet influence over the agendas of nonprofits as wealthy conservatives.

It’s a matter of big money influencing what should and should not be investigated, revealed, and discussed – especially when it comes to the tightening nexus between concentrated wealth and political power, and how that power further enhances great wealth.

Philanthropy is noble. But when it’s mostly in the hands of a few super-rich and giant corporations, and is the only game available, it can easily be abused.

Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians.

But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring.

This story was published on Robert Reich’s blog.

Boycott, Divest and Sanction Corporations that Feed on Prisons

– – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – – – –

I sent an email to Robert Reich advising that it is not just”big money” undermining the univeristies.  It is also the military:

http://minerva.dtic.mil/overview.html  

The Minerva Initiative is a Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored, university-based social science research initiative launched by the Secretary of Defense in 2008 focusing on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy.

The goal of the Minerva Initiative is 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 research program will:

Leverage and focus the resources of the Nation’s top universities. …

Apr 022015
 

From: Sandra Finley
Sent: April 2, 2015
To: <bschneier  xxx@xxx   cyber.law.harvard.edu>
Subject: thwarting activists by intrusion into wordpress

Hello Bruce Schneier,

Maybe you could use following info?   Maybe it’s already known?   (Or maybe my surmisal is incorrect.)

The sharing of information by bloggers is a problem for corporations.

I think that NSA or Lockheed Martin may be an explanation for difficulties being experienced at WordPress.   Many activist blogs are done through WordPress.  We push out the information on Ed Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Climate Change, the oil and gas industry, water, corruption, governance, Occupy, Idle No More, renewable, the March Against Monsanto (GMOs, Genetic Engineering), the military-industrial-congressional-university complex  … you know the list.

The “theme” I use (Suffusion) celebrated its millionth download in 2013.  That is just one of the themes available through WordPress.

I do not know what percentage are activist blogs.  But when you add all the themes,  you are talking a large number of activist bloggers.

I suspect the reason that a stable theme (Suffusion) is now “breaking” is because of intrusion (interference) at WordPress.

Your interview with Ed Snowden  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ui3tLbzIgQ&feature=youtu.be   prompts me to contact you.  Around the 16:30 mark a tactic is mentioned,  “… someone (an NSA or surveillance IT specialist)  to get hired into your organization”.  In the case of WordPress, you don’t even have to get hired.  You just have to be a valuable “volunteer”.  It’s an exploitable weakness of volunteer organizations that are always desperate for resources of time and money.

Here’s what happened in my case.

A focus of mine is Lockheed Martin in Canada.  They are ruthless and immoral; they  single-handedly destroy democracy.  I joined other protesters beginning in 2003, objecting to the out-sourcing of Census work (Statistics Canada, which is your “Census Bureau”).  We were successful in driving Lockheed out of StatsCan (2014).   EXCEPT THAT it’s a lie.  Lockheed Martin / the NSA will have back-door, if not front-door access (contracts or no contracts).   Access is to the comprehensive data base on Canadians at StatsCan.   It is growing daily because of on-going “surveys” that coerce personal info, more and more of it. Canadian’s Charter Right to Privacy is a farce.

UPDATE:  I found an expense claim on the StatsCan website from their second-in-command (copy on my blog) – – Lockheed Martin runs the FVEY cooperation on data bases  2016-03-18 (Canada) Does Lockheed Martin Corp have a role in the 2016 Census?   (The answer is yes – – Lockheed Martin does the “steerage”.)

Experience:  Three things happened, the third being the WordPress event.

  1. There was a coercive effort to force the small company that hosted my blog to take it down.  Both the service and I were threatened with a court case (intimidation).  The hosting company suggested to me they could transfer the blog to a server in Russia, out of reach of the Canadian justice system.  My blog stayed up.  The local company continues to do the tech support.
  2. Next (January 2015) came an assault on the domain name registrar to de-register the blog.   I had to hire a lawyer to defend the registration.
  3. There are now problems with WordPress.  I think it’s because so many bloggers use WordPress, and those corporations do not like our successes.   They decided to infiltrate WordPress.  The infiltrators manipulate the creation of some bad decisions that Thwart and frustrate a whole lot of bloggers.  Me being one.

I read the discussion about trying to fix this one theme, Suffusion (that had the millionth download back in 2013).  Some unpopular decisions were made by WordPress.  As I understand, the discussion saw that as the beginning of the “breaking” of Suffusion.

For me it meant that “Excerpts” can no longer be generated.  Terrible for the reader.   If you want to see all the postings on Bill C-51 (Anti-terrorism / Secret Police – –  Ed Snowden, bless him, did a youtube on it), for example, you can’t scroll through a list that has only the excerpt for each post.  You have to go through an unmanageably long list of the whole text for each posting.   Also, I can no longer get featured posts to appear in the header.  . . .

The community of supporters of Sayontan (the developer of “Suffusion”) are kind of bewildered and struggling.  On top of Sayontan’s  day-time job, this fellow cannot go back and un-do and re-do Suffusion to “fix” it.  It took years, all volunteer work for the public good, for him to develop Suffusion.  It’s hard to imagine that anyone could step in and re-do it.  And on a volunteer basis.  I’ll go to the conversation on “what happened” and “break it to them gently”  – – it’s probably their own Government (the NSA) and Corporations (Lockheed Martin).  Their sin?  – – they have been too successful in serving the public.   What a tragedy.

Anyhow, I should abandon WordPress and find secure blogging software.  But I never find time.  The descent into fascism moves apace.

Thank-you for your valuable contribution to understanding what’s going on.

I hope the preceding can be useful to someone.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

Apr 012015
 
 33 Tips To Being A Better Writer (Plus One Key To Creativity I Forgot To Tell You About)by James Altucher

 

I wrote a blog post that was horrible. Claudia said, “People won’t relate.”

I rewrote it completely. She said, “much better”. I published it and that practically ruined my life. I loved it so much.

I became obsessed with blogging. I read every day. I wrote every day. Eventually I rewrote some stuff and made books out of them. Some of the books became bestsellers.

Claudia went over each book and told me what to take out and what to keep in. Then she worked on the design of each book. Then she worked on the publishing of each book. She says, “these are practically my books”.

Then I started giving talks. I started getting paid to be on boards or give advice. People were buying my books. I started a newsletter. I get many opportunities because of the writing. All because I kept a discipline of writing every day.

But that’s NOT what did it. That’s not what I’m writing about.

What did it for me was having a partner. A partner that helped me get things done. A partner that filled in the gaps of my creativity.

There’s no such thing as a lone genius. Every Steve Jobs has a Steve Wozniak.

Every Marie Curie has a Pierre Curie. Every Lennon has a McCartney. Even the most isolated genius (Picasso) had a Braque.

Claudia now has a book out. It’s been #1 in her category since it came out. Now people are paying HER to give talks.

For five years, I’ve helped edit every one of Claudia’s blog posts. I take out words. I take out paragraphs. I take out half the article. We even do a podcast together.

Ugh, it sounds like I’m bragging. I’m not. The reverse. I used to write boring stuff about stocks.

Now I write about those ugly places where my past intersects with my present. Where I’m trying to still get through the prickly needles that give me pain every time my mind remembers.

I couldn’t do that without a partner. Writing is ultimately something you do by yourself. But finding someone who helps you move beyond what you would be by yourself is the key to making something that stands out.

Doesn’t have to be a spouse. I can tell you – maybe it shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to end well (Lennon and McCartney, Jobs and Wozniak, Freud and Jung).

I look back at the 150 people or so I’ve interviewed for my podcasts. Artists, authors, billionaires, astronauts, creatives in every space. 100% of them (100% !) had their McCartney, or their Simone De Beauvoir, or their Sheryl Sandberg.

Creativity wins when you take two minds that can complete each others sentences, but enough differences between them that your creativity lights on fire exploring those differences.

With this one idea in mind, find the people who complete your sentences.

List all your interests, go to meetups to meet like-minded people. Share your work online and see who is most excited. Get together with the people in your social network and come up with ideas for each other. See if 1+1 = infinity.

We define the people around us. And they define us. Find the right dictionary.

The key to creativity is to give to someone else. And for them to give back to you something better. Repeat.

—

Creativity equals your partner + your skills.

Here are still the 33 skills I feel I need to become a good writer. Am I a good writer? I have no idea.

I’m honest and I try my best and I’ve had major pains. Meshing them together, I write about it. These are the 33 techniques I use to try and improve every day.

 

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Mar 272015
 

Chris Hedges may be right  – –

Chris Hedges on Bill C-51: They have won, and it is up to us

 

Bill C-51 exists in an unprecedented corporate era.  “P-3’s” (so-called “Public-Private-Partnerships”) are exalted by Governments and their Corporate partners.  “The Public”‘s  translation is “Pick the Public Purse”.

One of the biggest areas of corporate takeover in the U.S. is military and “security” forces, the stuff of Canadian Bill C-51 (Anti-Terrorism, Secret Police).

You do not need a long memory to know the disastrous consequences that arise from “out-sourcing” in this sphere.

 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Aside:  other postings in the C-51 category,  click on the small grey text immediately below the title of the posting.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – – – –  –  – –

So

  • start with a reminder of what happens in the real world when you have corporate domination in the military / security sphere, and then
  • shift thinking to Bill C-51.   …

Bill C-51  must be understood IN CONTEXT.   A summary of CONTEXT addressed in previous postings appears at bottom.  To it is now added  . . .

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

 BILL C-51 IN THE REAL WORLD 

OF “OUT-SOURCING” TO CORPORATIONS

 

The Torture example was useful in demonstrating the disdain with which the Prime Minister and Police leadership hold the Law.   They believe the laws do not apply to them, symptomatic of a police state.

Continue with the Torture example to demonstrate this next point:  what happens when the corporate world is heavily involved, as it is, in “defense” or “the military” or “security” ot “the war department” or the CIA, the FBI and the NSA or whatever you want to call it, and using terms from the American side.

Canada was party to the Torture in offshore American prisons.

The 20 “Findings” of the U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture  is a listing of incompetence. (Take my word, or go to the link and scroll down to the Findings.)

Beyond, or in explanation of incompetence,  Finding #13:

By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the (torture) program.

Lockheed Martin was the major “contract interrogator”:

Lockheed Martin, Consolidated documentation, “Contract Interrogators”. SYTEX. CIA Torture out-sourced. The disaster explained in U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture

The posting makes clear the extent and the outcomes of the contracting out. The CIA is a culprit of course, but not the only one.  With overwhelmingly outsourced operations and Lockheed Martin a number one contractor,  … you get the picture.

It is also clear that with the out-sourcing it is much more difficult to hold people responsible for their actions. The laws are broken with impunity.

 

Finding #20 of the Report on the Torture says

The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.

 

International and Canadian Law outlaws torture.

The belief that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Police are above the Law is addressed in  Laws that do not apply to the Government and Police elites. (very dangerous environment . . . and now you want to add Secret Police without a strong arms’-length watch-dog (Bill C-51)?  Just “trust us”?  You have got to be joking.).

EXCERPT:

Stephen Harper has not been held to account for the failure to get Khadr out of Guatanamo. Every other western nation removed their citizens from Gitmo – – the torture being done there was well-known. Books were written about it.

Presumably, the leadership of the countries who removed their citizens, Australia for example, understood that they would be acting outside the law, and would therefore be subject to prosecution, if they knowingly left their ctiizens in Gitmo when they KNEW that torture was part of the game.

The reason Stephen Harper could leave Khadr in Guantanamo to my thinking, is that he believes he is above the Rule of Law, that the laws do not apply to him. He believes he will never be held to account for his role in illegal activity (torture).

CANADA AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT  (ICC):

John McNamer filed a request to the chief prosecutor at the ICC, asking for an investigation of Canada’s complicity in torture, which is being considered by prosecutors.  McNamer’s request can be found online here.   John McNamer is a Canadian citizen and Kamloops resident.  He was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for service with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam.

(Others, including myself have corresponded with the ICC regarding the American perpetrators.  Bush et al will eventually be brought to Justice.  See the CHRONOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS,  Arrest George Bush. Rule of Law essential to democracy.  The efforts have never stopped.)

 

(ASIDE:  Unfortunately, it is looking as though we are about to be stalwart little loyalists of the military-industrial-congressional-university complex once again . . .  well no – – we’ll just be “Americans” and under Harper go into another illegal, badly thought-out war in the Middle East, this time in Syria.  Hmmm  Chris Hedges mentioned a tax revolt.  Refuse to pay the bill?!)

But back to Bill C-51 in the Real World of Out-Sourcing.  

The preceding is a record of the following characteristics of the “Security” world (Secret Police, Anti-Terrorism).   If we do not resist, this is what we agree to pay for:

  • Incompetence (The Findings of U.S. Senate Report on Torture),  which is perfectly consistent with the story of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth bombers that Canadians are supposed to buy, but some other countries have refused.  The F-35 is one long sorry story of ballooning costs, malfunctions, inferior product, exorbitant price tag  …  but ah! the money, the lobbying, and the corruption!
  • Break Laws with impunity.  Innocent people just “detained”, tossed in, and tortured by sadistic people.
  • Seems that contracting out is a way to circumvent tedious laws.
  • Exorbitant costs of the Torture program:   just one example,  American tax-payers paid  $1,800 per day each to the two principals in the original contract.  Perfectly consistent with everything we know about Lockheed Martin projects.
  • Terribly damaged national reputation.
  • Created resistance (of course) which is eventually expressed as “terrorism”.  Your actions have consequences, torture has consequences, as does the appropriation of resources that belong to other people.
  • Secrecy – –  the fact that  “interrogation” was being done by outside contractors was largly unknown until 2004.
  • So you know damn well that lying and cover-up is standard in the Out-Sourced World.  Not to mention murder.

Oh well,  you can add to the list.  That’s enough from me.  Except for this:  The preceding is an inevitable outcome.  See   CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC-PRIVATE-PARTNERSHIPS AND CORRUPTION

Bill C-51 exists in a world of out-sourcing, and I did not make up the preceding example (torture).   It’s real.

You think C-51 has nothing to do with Lockheed Martin Corporation?   … I hope to address that in another posting when time permits.

Ask yourself this question:  what are the benefits for citizens of the arrangement whereby  the police, military and “security” services are “out-sourced”?    When you’ve answered that, ask “Why is it done?”.

The next posting will address the extent of the “partnering”.  I think we are generally and deliberately “in the dark”.

 

Chris Hedges may be right (they’ve won).  But it’s not over until … (?) we stop fighting and that hasn’t happened!   Mount the steeds!   Start firing off those rat-a-tat-tat emails.  Start a conversation.  Join a protest.  Whatever you do, be informed and support the protesters.  Even if what they do is not something you would do.  Be comfortable with your own contribution.

 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

You might see the following reflected in    Naomi Wolf’s 10 Steps to Fascism  (Item #3 in that posting)

 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

BILL C-51:  Aspects of CONTEXT
addressed in previous postings,
the creation of a Police State in hyped fear of enemies:

Bill C-51 (Anti-Terrorism / Secret Police), if it is passed. would be ON TOP OF:

“Montebello” should be added:

Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007). Police are the Provocateurs.

Quebec police admit they were the Provocateurs

Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy and water resources and borders. Others decried what they called a high level of secrecy at the summit.

Add:  The Troop Exchange Agreement, 2008

Add:  The “Canada First Defense Strategy”,  2008-06-19.  Very serious.  The vehicle for worming the American military-industrial-government-university complex into Canada.   Peripherally, when I didn’t have time, I noticed – – I think they’ve changed.this document.  It doesn’t matter – – it is the blueprint.

Add:   a list too long …

Add to this:  Collaborators and Vengeance. Savage Continent   

    • Manipulation of the Knowledge base,  The Minerva Initiative. . . The goal of the Minerva Initiative is to improve DoD’s (U.S. Dept of Defense’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 research program will:
      • Leverage and focus the resources of the Nation’s top universities. …

Add to this, American defense contractors in Canadian Univerisites:  2014-08-19,  Request to Board of Governors, University of Saskatchewan: END the relationship with Lockheed Martin Corporation

 

Mar 252015
 

http://rabble.ca/news/2015/03/chris-hedges-on-c-51-they-have-won-and-it-to-us

With thanks to  rabble.ca

By  Chris Hedges

March 17, 2015

 

Photo: ucobserver
. . .   Hedges has spent much of his career working as a foreign correspondent in war zones across the globe, and has written extensively on the surveillance state and world conflict. rabble.ca interviewed Hedges by phone that day. You can read that interview here.

 

 

Here is what Chris Hedges planned to tell the Toronto crowd protesting C-51:    (Weather delayed his flight causing him to miss the rally.)

 

There are no internal constraints left to halt totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics is a sham. The media is subservient to corporate power. The working class is being disempowered and impoverished. The legal system is a subsidiary of the corporate state. Any form of dissent, no matter how tepid, will soon to be blocked by an internal security apparatus empowered by anti-terrorist laws that will outstrip anything dreamed of by the East German Stasi state. And no one in Ottawa or Washington intends to help us. Opposition parties, such as the Democratic Party, may cry foul when out of power, but once in power they bow to the demands of the omnipotent military and security organs that serve our corporate masters.

 

Any state that has the ability to inflict full-spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state. It does not matter if it does not use this capacity today. It will use it, history has shown, should it feel threatened or seek greater control. The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Hannah Arendt wrote, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” No one who lives under constant surveillance, who is subject to detention anywhere at any time, whose conversations, messages, meetings, proclivities and habits are recorded, stored and analyzed, as ours are, can be described as free. The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked, and those who watch and track them, is the relationship between masters and slaves.

 

There will, if this law is not blocked, be no checks left on state power. State Security will operate outside the law. Citizens will be convicted on secret evidence in secret courts. Citizens will be subject to arbitrary searches and arrests. Due process will be eradicated. Internal security organs will serve as judge, jury and executioner. The outward forms of democratic participation — voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation — will remain, but become meaningless forms of political theater.

Once the security services become omnipotent those who challenge the abuses of power, those who expose the crimes carried out by government are treated as criminals. Totalitarian states always invert the moral order. The evil rule. The righteous are condemned.

Societies that once had democratic traditions, or periods when openness was possible, are often seduced into totalitarian systems because their rulers continue to pay outward fealty to the ideals, practices and forms of the old systems. This was true when the Emperor Augustus dismantled the Roman Republic. It was true when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control of the autonomous soviets and ruthlessly centralized power. It was true following the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi fascism. And it is true today in Canada and the United States. Thomas Paine described despotic government as a fungus growing out of a corrupt and decayed civil society.

Try to defend the treaty rights of First Nations people and you will go to prison. Try to halt the tar sands, fracking, or the bitumen-carrying pipelines and you will go to prison. Try to oppose Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and you will go to prison. And once you are seized by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service you can be subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, the disorienting poles of extreme light and darkness or extreme heat and extreme cold, along with stress-position torture, waterboarding, beatings and pressure-point torture. And it will all be legal.

Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, activists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, journalists, union leaders and those defined as “liberals.” They will be condemned by reactionary forces, fed and sustained by corporate propaganda and money, and blamed for our decline. The looming economic and environmental collapse will be pinned by these demagogues and hate-mongers — some of whom have found a perch within the CBC — on vulnerable scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, such as the attack by a lone gunman on Parliament Hill, will be used to justify even harsher measures of internal control. Fear will be relentlessly orchestrated to manufacture paralysis and consent.

How do we resist? How, if this descent is inevitable, as I believe it is, do we fight back? Why should we resist at all? Why not give in to cynicism and despair? Why not carve out as comfortable a niche as possible within the embrace of the corporate state and spend our lives attempting to satiate our private needs? The power elite, including most of those who graduate from our top universities, academics, politicians, the press and our liberal and intellectual classes, have sold out for personal comfort. Why not us?

Albert Camus argued that we are separated from each other. Our lives are meaningless. We cannot influence fate. We will all die. Our individual beings will be obliterated. And yet Camus wrote “one of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between human beings and their obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it.”

“A living person can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object,” Camus warned. “But if he or she dies in refusing to be enslaved, he or she reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.”

The rebel, for Camus, stands with the oppressed — the unemployed and underemployed workers, the people of the First Nations whose land and lives are being exploited, Palestinians in Gaza, the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disappeared who are held in our global black sites, the poor in our inner cities and depressed rural communities, immigrants and those locked away in our prison system. And to stand with them means a refusal to collaborate with political systems that mouth the words of justice while carrying out acts of oppression. It means open and direct defiance.

The elites and their liberal apologists dismiss the rebel as impractical. They brand the rebel’s outsider stance as counterproductive. They condemn the rebel for being inflexible, unwilling to compromise. These elites call for calm and patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality, compromise, tolerance, generosity and compassion to argue that the only alternative is to accept and work with systems of despotic power. The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes this impossible. The rebel refuses to be bought off with government and foundation grants, invitations to parliament, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage — anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines is its own virtue.

“You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career,” Vaclav Havel said when he battled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. “You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. … The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. The dissident is not seeking power. The dissident has no desire for office and does not gather votes. The dissident does not attempt to charm the public. The dissident offers nothing and promises nothing. The dissident can offer, if anything, only his or her own skin — and the dissident offers it solely because the dissident has no other way of affirming the truth he or she stands for. The dissident’s actions simply articulate his or her dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”

We have the capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority. It is only this refusal to cooperate that will save us.

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop,” Mario Savio said in 1964. “And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Rebellion in the face of tyranny is its own justification. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings. Rebellion chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the flames of empathy, solidarity, hope and finally love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames, no matter how dim, are monumental. They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that “existence is an act of rebellion.” Once we attain that freedom we discover that rebellion is not defined by what it achieves, but by who we become.

Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism, those who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration with corporate tyranny are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide. They extinguish hope. They become the living dead.

No one Ottawa or Washington will halt the rise of the most sophisticated security and surveillance state in human history. The corporate coup is over. And they have won. It is up to us. We are the people we have been waiting for.

I do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But I know these corporate forces have us by the throat. And they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists. And this is a fight that in the face of the overwhelming forces against us requires us to find in all acts of sustained rebellion the embers of life, an intrinsic meaning that lies outside of certain success. It requires us to at once grasp reality and then refuse to allow this reality to paralyze us. It is, and I say this to people of all creeds or no creeds, to make an absurd leap of faith, to believe, despite all empirical evidence around us, that good always draws to it the good, that the fight for life always goes somewhere. We do not know where. The Buddhists call it karma. And in these sustained acts of resistance we make it possible to reclaim a future for the generations that come after us, a future that the corporate state, if not overthrown, will obliterate.