Can you explain what you mean? As far as I can tell Jade Helm was a fairly routine military training exercise, which was latched onto by a group of conspiracy nuts. What’s a “scare-o-tron rollout”?
The medium sized stuff can be steered by the adminstration in power. The people you elect can exert influence in those areas, I mean.
But the huge stuff is out of their control. The military especially is very interesting to me because no war just happens spontaneously. It's all got to be planned years in advance. In that context, where does a Jade Helm fit in?
Anyhow, regardless of what you think of the loudmouths regarding Jade Helm, that campaign was certainly odd in its conception both in terms of size and setting.
What possible valid reason would the US military have for doing large scale trainings in US urban settings? I don't mean that question in a conspiracy sense. I mean, logically speaking, why? The military has the tactics and hardware to engage in urban settings down pat. Just training for training's sake? That's nonsense.
I'll leave the speculation as to the "real" motives for Jade Helm to the more frothy-mouthed. What I know after-the-fact was there was an odd/confusing move by the military, followed by a terrible sales job by the stuffed shirts in power that led inevitably to a failed/cancelled campaign. It reinforces my point that the power structure seems to be creaking here.
Tough, frequent, realistic training is exactly what is required to keep certain parts of the military prepared. I'm not talking about logisticians or acquisitions types. Personnel turnover is a problem. People must learn how to work together. For people like you and I, we have the opportunity to learn to work with our coworkers... every day! In the military, a service member only really learns how to work with their coworkers during these kinds of exercises. When it's cold. When it's dark. When everyone is tired and hungry.
You've also suggested that "the military has the tactics and hardware to engage in urban settings down pat" ... and you're absolutely correct. Senior personnel have lessons learned. Those lessons are captured in various documents. However, much like a start-up, execution is everything. The execution comes from personnel who typically have just a few years experience. There is an enormous amount of knowledge which must be transferred in a short period of time. These training events are how the lessons and doctrine are shared with those junior leaders. Classroom instruction is not sufficient.
Finally, I will disagree that the training event was "odd in it's conception." Certain parts of the military perform these kinds of exercises regularly. The only part of this exercise which was odd was the amount of attention it garnered.
Sounds like you think it would have been okay though. Want to sell me on rolling tanks, helicopters, and troops through town? Can they fire their guns and cannons (with blanks)? What limits would you put on the exercise if you were in charge or is everything the military does reasonable?
The military has many places to train. There are places to shoot. There are places to blow things up. There are places to maneuver tanks. There are few places which include a civilian population.
That event was a training event for parts of SOF community; a community which is operating in over 100 countries at any given time. Very few of those countries are in active conflict... by that I'm referring to a shooting-war. These types of units must be prepared to perform their tasks in a peaceful environment without undue notice. Units are typically small; think less than 15 people with maybe 2-3 civilian-style vehicles. They operate dispersed over large areas. They don't have tanks. When such units move around, they are usually in non-military vehicles and attire. For this kind of unit many tasks are related to interacting with people, either local security forces (police and military) or local civilians. There is a legitimate need to train on such tasks.
These types of training events focus on the military tasks which need this kind of a training environment (large area, dispersed operations, civilian population). Training for tasks related to shooting and blowing things up happen in areas the military 'owns.'
I highly doubt any of the training plans included detonations, live-fire, or even dry-fire events anywhere outside the normal military training areas. It's more likely that the interactions with the actual civilian population would have been completely un-noticed. An interaction would more likely look like a strangely fit group of guys were putting fuel in their Toyota and then drove away... maybe making a few jokes with you while you both wait at the pump. Almost certainly the same (or less) level of impact as your average Reserve or National Guard unit driving around on a weekend.
Ultimately people want to think they are living in the most critical important times of the world ever. But this is a fallacy of how we live, in the present. Everyone has thought that their time then was the most critical. Look to history to get perspective and the pinch of salt we need.
I'm...seriously baffled as to what confusion of ideas would lead you to say something like this. Do you not know what the word "training" means?
"Does the need to train troops for urban combat provide enough justification for the military to conduct realistic exercises in actual US cities?" is how I wish I had written that.
Not saying this is a good thing. Read any 80s cyberpunk novel to see what's coming. William Gibson was a prophet.
More at http://www.isdscorporateattacks.org & https://icsid.worldbank.org
Water: Azurix v. Argentina
Investor win (awarded $165 million plus interest)
Ban of toxic fuel additive: Ethyl v. Canada
Case settled (investor received $13 million, ban reversed)
Toxic waste: Metalclad v. Mexico
Investor win (awarded $16.2 million)
Too-big-to-fail: Saluka v. Czech Republic
Investor win (awarded $236 million)Never say there is nothing you can do. Tell other people about ISDS. Share the videos [1][2][3][4].
Jon Oliver's video [4] about the Philip Morris tobacco ISDS lawsuit against Australia (for brown paper packaging) caused such an outcry that TPP negotiators were forced to exclude the entire tobacco industry from ISDS. This is the first time such an industry-specific carve-out has appeared in a trade agreement.
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=M9ZFDpuiFUs
[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=M4-mlGRPmkU
The ones who follow "the line" and are afraid of getting ostracized by their peers.
The ones who value pocket change now over future prospects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Campai...
The above Saluka v. Czech Republic case got me interested, so I have read a little on this. At the time Japanese Nomura had invested in Czech IPB bank in 1998, there was an international treaty on protection of investments in effect between the Czech republic and the Netherlands. Nomura had transferred the 46% ownership of IPB to their Netherlands-based fund Saluka (I am not sure on legality of this operation). The lawsuit took place after Czech government's actions reacting to IPB bank falling down. Nomura was partially responsible for the downfall as it did not make promised actions to help the bank, but the government also had their feet wet when later they helped other banks in similarly bad shape, but did not help IPB. Nomura was smart and resourceful enough to point out this is in odds with the above treaty and benefit from the situation. The government has tried to sue Nomura as well for its actions/inactions and law breaking for 240 billion crowns, but then dropped it to make an agreement with Nomura.
An international arbitrage took place in 2006-8 which found 5 out of 8 claims made by Saluka to be invalid, but the remaining 3 were found to be valid. The most important finding was that the Czech republic did not give the same kind of financial assistance to the IPB bank it had given to other banks in similar shape and thus failed to honor the international treaty ion investment protection. Saluka demanded 30 billion crowns as a compensation, the arbiters decided only 3.5 billion crowns, equal to initial Nomura's investment, should be payed. In this case at least, it seems to me, legally things worked well - the government screwed up, it got sued, it lost and it paid up.
Sorry for the long write-up. What's the morale of the story? I am not outraged so much by the possibility of corporation suing the government as by government's utter ineptness. We need more efficient, less corrupt government that can follow and enforce meaningful rules and at the same time, keep nasty investors and their schemes in check.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144277
http://www.protext.cz/zprava.php?id=2487 http://www.kurzy.cz/zpravy/117569-respekt-nomura-na-investic... http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiozurnal/publicistika/_zprava/jan-m...
It doesn't tell me that at all.
In terms of fearless leaders, he definitely is one.
Of course, I also think his ideas are mostly inane and that within fifteen minutes of his inauguration he would have already started World War III. But I can understand why people want to elect him.
- Wants to stop illegal immigration. Not immigration. Only illegal. i.e. people not paying taxes but living there undocumented
- Non-citizens giving birth in USA and then automatically the baby is USA's problem until it dies
- Tax reform that wants to stop corporate inversion and bring money back to USA (Google, Apple, etc.)
- Wants a more competitive health care system than Obamacare
- Wants USA to make better trade deals because there are crazy trade deficits.
Why are any of these ideas seen as being crazy by Americans?
It's not some incidental issue. Resolving it would mean completely overhauling what American identity is.
It's crazy because you've just given the entire substance of his campaign. He hasn't actually given any more details than that, and the points are ostensibly chosen because they're easily latched onto by people who can't be bothered to pay very much attention. Also the wall thing.
Trump seems like a very pragmatic reasoner. Keeps things simple. His way of reasoning seems to go something like this: "Illegal immigration. Are you for it, or against it? Against it? Ok. Would a wall help? Yes or no. Yes? Ok but you seem apprehensive about it. Why are you apprehensive? It's going to be expensive? We have a trade deficit with Mexico. I bet I could force them to pay for it by using strong arm tactics and adding taxes onto things they like exporting here. I'm good at negotating shit like that. Are you still apprehensive?" And so on.
I just simply can't find any coherently written rebuttals other than articles that go "Trump is crazy. He's an narcissist. He's a racist" basically just ad hominems. No one is being critical about any of his points. So it's very weird when I see all the hostility against him but no actual counter arguments.
Nation state fully intact. Donald Trump is far less dramatic and just another cookie cutter populist.
Even without conspiracy theories regarding secret cabals that rule the world from the shadows, there is overwhelming inertia baked into the system itself.
A fairly recent study that I very vaguely recall pointed to this fact: the conclusion being that it is extraordinarily difficult to effect change within systems that are essentially self-perpetuating.
They're both creative individuals that are willing to buck the trend and change things in the way they think is right rather than toeing the party line.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/stop-comparing-donald-tr...
Notably #6 in the article.
But although he tends to vote the same as many other Democrats, he is very dangerous to moneyed interests in politics. No one's bothered to fix that for a long time.
Which is exactly why he can't win: those moneyed interests have...money.
Citizens United eviscerated of at least the appearance of a democracy.
"You there! STOP!"
"Huh?"
"We've got you on record for bootstrapping, machine code, and compiler writing!"
"so?"
"That's a threat, and you are going to have to come with us and register."
"Register for what?"
"As a weapon. We need to know where you are and who you associate with..."
When faced with a very difficult task, there is a tendency in humans to feel helpless and unable to affect any meaningful change. This quickly spirals into a nasty form of learned helplessness. This feedback loop can lead to a nihilistic attitude. If you can't win, why bother trying. Even Feynman succumbed to this problem[1] after the Manhattan Project.
One thing I do know about the people trying to put the General Purpose Computer back in it's bottle, and the people who are so terrified of their fellow citizens they create a surveillance state to try to preserve their status quo: every person that succumbs to a defeatist or nihilistic attitude is one less person is one less person standing in their way.
[1] sigh - it seems the BBC took down the video I had bookmarked. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE#t=1114 ). A quick search found the video at dailymotion (jump to 18:34 for the comment I'm referencing): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x24gwgc_richard-feynman-the...
Take that bit of dialog and plug in a smart kid making their own stuff...
That's the approach taken by Bitcoin - why attack the banks when we can circumvent them? We can build what we need and ignore the old system. No need to get down to the level of kindergarten kids throwing mud. Do better instead.
We CAN build what we need, in fact most of what we need exists in software bits and bobs already.
Connectivity to this alternative network I envision would be free, but users would need to pay local trusted individuals/businesses to aggregate and cache subscriptions to wider-area feeds for them. Consider that these feeds would necessarily constitute large amounts of data since you'd need to bring huge swaths of data you're interested in close to your locality.
The volume and freshness of the data users would subscribe to would be proportionate to how much they'd collectively be willing to pay to fetch and store on an ongoing basis (sortof like how we have tiers for internet connection speeds today.)
The software for the network would build on existing tools and libraries on the client with proper sandboxing of sessions. The storage, cache, feed management, payments, chargebacks, and crypto are all solved problems for the most part.
Yes, this would be a huge effort and would probably work best if some new consumer hardware were developed and that would require investment. But, I don't think anything I have in mind is technically infeasible. I'd like to have some reasonable systems and protocols in place that prevent users being identified and tracked on the network for most classes of communications.
I think that we need something like IPFS, which connects via covert channels, and is fully deniable. With ubiquitous HD video, download bandwidth would be trivial, even with ~1% signal/carrier. Upload bandwidth would be harder to hide.
And we really need better crypto key management. Keybase.io, Namecoin, OpenKeychain, Yubikey NEO, etc, they all contribute to part of the solution, but we need something more comprehensive.
I do chuckle about all this though because these moves are so clumsy and obvious. And recently the spokesmouths of the powerful have been SO ineffective. The Jade Helm scare-o-tron rollout was completely botched and scrapped as far as I can tell. Selling a war with Syria was also completely botched. Kerry has been a fool as sec. of state and never met a war he didn't like, talks about going to war all the time to the press with no context. CIA and arms deals in Benghazi and the sloppy coverup around that, we FUBAR'ed Libya for no good reason. Obama openly threatening whistleblowers like a douche. Republican establishment is losing its grip on the reins and losing containment of the growing number of dissenting voices. If I were the archons in power behind the scenes, I'd be concerned.
As a developer, if I wanted to - REALLY wanted to - I feel like I could upend all of their power and diminish their relevance. I wouldn't do it with anarchy or hacktivism or whatnot because that destruction is desperate and ultimately self-defeating. Instead, I'd take the constructive route and build an alternate system to the internet that resists regulation and rewards the decentralization of server computing power and storage.
I have a day job that pays just fine and I live a peaceful life with my family where I get to enjoy a lot of personal freedom. I don't take a lot of action today other than to avoid the social networks like the plague. I think the trigger for me to act will be when my ox gets gored somehow by these new regulations. Or, perhaps if we go to war with some rogue state who dares violate the intellectual property rights of Disney, etc.