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Are our World Organisations out of date? “The Ebola crisis is a wake up call”

11 Saturday Oct 2014

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Ebola     Ebola Exercise

Lets start with The World Health Organisation (called WHO)

The current outbreak in West Africa of Ebola has brought it into public view.

Formed by the United Nations in 1948, (76 years ago) it is still trying to be an efficient and effective organisation.

In the 76 years of its existence the agency has promulgated only two major treaties: The International Health Regulations and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

It has declare two global health emergencies. The 2009 swine flu (H1N1) epidemic, and in reaction to a reversal of progress in eradicating polio in May 2014.  

A deeply political organisation, it remains the undoubted leader in global health.

With its incomparable expertise, global influence, and normative powers it has no substitute. There is no other show in town. So it survives as a global health agency within the United Nations, the question is.

“If we try to improve it, will it fall to pieces?”“

At the moment it resembles nothing so much as a dinosaur on the edge of the Ice Age, only in this case it will be the Age of Global Warming and the age of the lifestyle-associated non-communicable pandemics that cannot be stopped by an immunizing needle, quarantine or medicine that is going to test it in the future.

What exactly is it?

It comprises of six regional offices that are uniquely independent within the UN system, with each regional office having full power over regional personnel, including appointment of country representatives, all administered by 147 country offices.

It is controlled by delegates from its 194 member states, each of which has an equal vote on the direction of agency policies.

So what we really have is six separate WHOs in six different regions – Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific governed by 194 governing member states.  An Organisation that is plagued by ossified structures that prevent it from exercising the flexibility it needs.

It’s no wonder it has problems and in need of reform.

Few would dispute that a stronger, more effective World Health Organisation would benefit all.

THIS CANNOT BE ACHIEVED BY AN Agency whose work and policies ultimately reflective of its wealthiest donors, leaving it scant margin to set its own.

It simply is not sustainable to have wealthy states and foundations control some 80% of WHO’s budget.

Don’t be surprised that it is now pointing its finger at the lack of contribution it is getting to manage the current outbreak of Ebola.

However it can not be excused for using the voluntary funds it does receive primarily for infectious diseases (60%), with negligible allocations for non-communicable diseases (3.9%) and injuries (3.4%). Yet, non-communicable diseases account for 62% of all deaths worldwide, and injuries constitute 17% of the global burden of disease.

Just three years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) was in deep financial trouble, with a US$300-million deficit. More importantly, its extra-budgetary expenditure rose from 48.8% to 77.3% from 1998/99 to 2008/09.

The $3.98-billion budget approved by the assembly for 2014–15 shows zero growth on the WHO’s $3.96-billion budget for 2012–13,

Its income from member dues has stagnated since the 1990s. WHO is probably funded at about 10% of what it needs.

However it is not to be blamed for its inability to tackle infectious diseases such as Malaria because over 80% of its budget is voluntary. The agency has long been plagued by the fact that it has total control of only a small part of its budget:

77% — of the 2014–15 budget comes from voluntary contributions from member states and other donors.

Budget cuts at the WHO have severely hobbled the agency’s ability to respond to the Ebola epidemic.

So what are we going to do?”

We see over and over again with disasters. It’s the money that flows after something happens – after Hurricane Sandy, or Katrina or, in this case, Ebola.

The world of global health is rapidly changing if WHO is to offer leadership for urgent challenges facing the global health, such as emerging infectious diseases and noncommunicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer) it must have its Financing changed from voluntary to fully funded.

Mandatory contributions are more aligned with the actual global burden of disease than voluntary funding. The ideal solution for this is to set higher member state mandatory contributions. Member states must become genuine shareholders in the World Health Organisation’s future, act collectively, and refrain from exerting narrow political interests.

The World Health Organisation is presently financed through two main streams. First, member-states pledge a set amount based on each country’s wealth and population. The second stream is through voluntary contributions often earmarked for specific diseases.  This has to change

Extra-budgetary funding would transform the WHO from a donor-driven organization, restricting its ability to direct and coordinate the global health agenda into some thing worth while.

Organizations like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC); Doctors Without Borders (MSF); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the Gavi Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are important actors, often with more money and visibility than the WHO. There’s an obvious need for a higher degree of inter agency coordination and collaboration embracing the WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization,UNICEF and UNHCR.

Preparedness is a constant battle. It’s not like you can just make an investment and walk away. It’s something that needs to be kept up. And quickly, once the crisis passes and the headlines aren’t there anymore, that money dries up.

The organisation could take a more active role in regulating key global health issues, including counterfeit medicines, food safety, and nutrition. It could be more engaged and influential in international regimes with powerful health impacts, such as trade, intellectual property, arms control, and climate change.

The WHO must undergo fundamental reform if it’s to retain its rightful place as the leader in global health. While remaining true to its normative and bold vision of health-for-all, the organisation must adapt to a new political climate, demonstrate global leadership, and deliver results. The Gatekeeper of the planet’s health must publishing more about where its money goes and what it achieves.

Can any of this actual happen?  Of course not.

The only way to funds these organisations it to cap Greed at it source. (See Previous Posts)  Once the funding is there then we can HAVE MEANINGFUL WORLD ORGANISATIONS.

We all know that World Organisations end up as bickering, skint, power, shops.

Next Post we will look at the World Bank.

 

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Name of the organisation Headquarter Head:

UN Security Council New York The presidentship is held for one month by member countries in alphabetical order.
UN General Assembly New York Huke Jeremic; 2013-John William Ashe
UN Secretariat New York Ban Ki Moon
International Court of justice The Hague, Netherlands Peter Tomka
International Criminal Court Lyons, France Song Sang-Hyun
Economic and Social Council New york Milos koterek
Food and Agriculture organisation Rome Jose Graziano da Silva
International civil Aviation organisation Montreal, Canada Raymond Benjamin
International Labour organisation Geneva Juan Somavia
International Monetary Fund Washington DC Christian Lagarde (former head Dominique Strauss Kahn was involved in a sex scandal)
International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna, Austria Yukiyo Amano
International Maritime Organisation London, U.K. Koji SekimizuUnited nations Educational Cultural and Social organisation Paris Irina Bokova (1st woman to have become director-general)
Internatioonal labour organization Geneva Juan Somavia
International fund for Agriculture Development Rome Kanayo F. Nwanze
World Bank New York Jim Yong kim
World health Organisation Geneva Dr. Margaret Chan
World intellectual property organisation Geneva Francis Gurry
World trade Organisation Geneva Pascal Lamy
United nations International Children and Women Fund New York Anthony Lake

Capitalism is growing increasingly unfit for purpose.

09 Thursday Oct 2014

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The present global economy is caught in a catch-22 of its own making.

After the fall of communism, capitalism was left as the only show in town, and what a show it is turning out to be.

By the beginning of the 21st century the world’s environment was in critical decline.

Oceans are turning acidic from atmospheric CO2 threatening marine life, melting glaciers are flooding cities where soon little water will flow at all, species are disappearing from the Earth at a faster rate than during the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago.

Much is being said about the importance of democracy and how it brings growth and prosperity, but the truth is that to date it has indeed enriched a few at the cost of the rest of us.

Economic growth these days is usually associated with technological changes, it is not for the benefit of the average person as is commonly believed. It is solely to create enough currency to keep the faulty global economy treading water so it doesn’t collapse.

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Politicians proudly report strong national economic growth statistics, perpetuating the illusion that this implies some kind of bonus for the average person, yet they systematically ignore ballooning national debt as though it is inconsequential.

The design of the global economy demands that by 2019 the economy will be twice the size it was in 2000.

At its present rate of growth, by 2059 the global economy will be ten times its 2000 size. But Earth cannot sustainable support a global economy the size it was in 2000. So in order to survive, the global economy is compelled to keep growing like a cancer, at an unsustainable rate that will kill its host.

This self-destructive design is a direct result of the flaw in the global money system which is guarded by Capitalistic profit to the dethronement of Values, causing vast inequalities which is the root cause of to days terrorism, and wars.

We we all know the scenario the more you grow the bigger the appetite till you either explode or there is nothing left to consume. Self destructive, not what they call sustainable growth.

The Capitalist economic plan we hear every day of growth, growth is running out fodder and nothing about the Internet, solar power, or 3D printing will change the fact that individuals have conflicting needs and desires and if it does not change courses soon, ( which it is incapable of doing so) it will leave all of us including the rich standing up to our necks in Shit.  ( See previous post on capturing greed at the heart of Capitalism)

The best stuff bubbles up from below, when will markets and technology be allowed to amplify the ideas of people and give voice and choice.

Real change requires that we address both the bottom-up and the top-down, that we design our efforts with beneficiaries front and center, and that we use evidence of real impact in the lives of the poor as the indicator of whether we’re doing it right.

But what do we see these days only an erosion of the public safety net, the increasing prevalence of low-wage employment, and decreases in low-wage earnings have combined to place low-income families under constant pressure as they struggle to work, to care for their families, and to maintain their access to public benefits.

Let’s assume, like most corporations and politicians do, that the world’s resources are endless and that no environmental threats exist. Even if that were the case, the global economy is self-destructive for an entirely different reason.

During the 20th century, subtle changes to global money systems turned currency from a sustainable means of exchange into one of the most destructive agents on Earth.

However, most of us were so busy struggling to get some money that this mutation of currency was mostly overlooked. The world is now obliged to pay back to banks more money than the banks ever create in the first place, an obviously impossible task.

Solutions exist, but the blindness that created the problem also stops the solutions from being seen.

Over the next 10 to 20 years, environmental destruction will escalate exponentially as we race towards the meltdown of civilization as we know it. Capital accumulation is driving ever-greater wealth inequality?

Ironically, the harder we try to alleviate this financial shortage, the faster we create it.

What is the solution?

Fundamental changes need to be made to align the global money system with reality. Money supply must be restructured into a sustainable means of exchange that serves countries rather than destroys civilizations.

The deadly aspect of our modern money system stems from the way money is now created.

Just look at the below example.

Modern money is created via credit  by the creation of debt.

If you borrow £100 from a bank, the £100 is not transferred to your account from existing currency held at the bank.

The £100 is created into existence by the loan.

You get £100 to spend, but you still owe the bank a £100 debt.

The money created is balanced out by the debt created.

As the loan is paid back to the bank, the repayments do not go into bank coffers but cancel out the original debt owed to the bank.

The repaid loan money is literally cancelled out of existence again.

So where do the banks get their profit from lending?

From the interest that is paid to the bank during the repayment of the loan.

The interest paid on loans is the fatal flaw in our modern currency systems.

Say during the term of the above loan, there is £200 generated in interest. This means that while the original hundred is created and then cancelled out, there is an extra £200 that must be found somewhere.

The only possible place this interest money can now be found is from circulating money generated by a different loan.

This, of course, means that even the capital of the second loan cannot be paid back, as there is now a shortfall of money in circulation.

The second loan amount – plus its interest – can only be repaid via money generated from yet further loans, and so on. (Quantitative Easing)

97% of the Money in the world is Debt, run by neoclassical economics which is divorced from reality. Giving us Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for the poor.   

Perhaps we could take a leaf from Muslim Banks.

Salam Islamic or sharia Banks offer interest free loan because the Bank gives loan through the method of buying and selling goods with an agreed margin which can be paid in installments

The question is where do we go next? ‘After Capitalism’  

The key to understanding development is to remain open to the true complexity of the global processes of innovation and diffusion and the myriad pathways through which politics, geography, economics, and culture can shape the flows of technologies around the world. 

An increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services, compared from one period of time to another perhaps is not the best model, as we have ending up being governed by corporations debasing the value of currency.  

Automation is replacing (for lack of a better word) the working classes, The Internet and the resulting social media has caught all of our world organisations with their pant down. Antibiotics are being defeated, you have to live longer to qualify for a state pension, you are consistently pressurized to buy crap you don’t need, and our politicians don’t know where to turn next.

All of these developing problems will overthrow capitalism as the world’s dominant economic model.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: A modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. 

Our digital wallet will have to have a conscious if we are all not to end up hoodwinked into a lethargy of Sport, Celebrities cooks, and reality TV.

The age of Consequences has started.

What is left unsaid has, with the Internet no place to hide.  

Our inability to grasp the new world is coming to an end. Its goodbye to collective disillusionment and I don’t give a dam.

Its time to put a stop to Greed and distribute wealth fairly by Putting a 0.05% commission on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions , on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transaction and on all Currency transactions over $20,000. ( See previous Posts)   

            

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When a robot dies you don’t have to write a letter to its Mother.

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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An Observation:

The BARBARIC ACT OF ISIS terrorism is rightly standing at the forefront of national and international agendas.

We all know that terrorism has taking on many forms, covering a wide variety of groups and motivations making it especially difficult to define, or defeat.

It has led to a revolution in WAR.

Because life and death decisions are becoming more and more robotic.

The 5000 years of men fighting Wars is coming to an end and is causing wrinkles in the Geneva Convention Laws of WAR AND WAR CRIMES.

You don’t have to convince a Robotic or a drone or ID that there are 72 virgins awaiting in heave. You can build one in the morning put it on a web site and some lunatic sitting at home can remotely detonate from his armchair., without any declaration of war.

This Robotic Unmanned Slaughter is presenting a new human dilemma because it is imparting a message of Cowardliness, which I am sure is the very reason that we see ISIS waving their black flags, Saying come and fight us on the ground.

The disconnectedness of engagement is leading to what I call WAR PORN on U tube. Videos for entertainment set to music that are reshaping the public views on war.

The Future of war is not going to set by the USA.

The how and who we are fighting and with what is it going to be the future force that determine’s Wars. It will be a bloke who controls remotely the more powerful killing machines and then goes home after a 12 hour shift for his dinner, turns on the Telly to view the results of his joy stick.

A Drone see 0000, or  1111 whether it’s a eight year old granny holding a child or a tank. If it makes a mistake in identity.  The product can be recalled and modified, with the unmanned killing put down to a software glitch.

The Drive to destroy, to create, and build more and more inventive machines to participate in Watch wars requires the rules of engagement to be updated. Now.

The consequences of not doing so could be dramatic considering that nearly everyone agrees on the abhorrent moral character of terrorism,while simultaneously disagreeing on how to define and identify it

Because these drones and robotic leave a  perceptual effects that may occur largely unconsciously, a wide range of people may end up associating American enemies with terrorism, even if the factual basis for this connection is quite tenuous.

The following words were used to project terrorism as verminous:

1. Attack
2. Kill
3. Enemy
4. Danger
5. Tragedy

Should we be adding Unmanned Killing and Guantanamo Bay.

We read and hear daily a Global war on terror.  Is this terminology, mis-characterizing the nature of the War?

You might say if you are killed by a charging elephant or robotic drone it makes little difference you dead, AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT DEAD IS DEAD.

So is there need for the Geneva Convention to take a look at the use of Weapons and Robotic programmers which have become highly securitized and politicized as a weapon for the realization of the goals of war on terror after 9/11.

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

It seems to me incredibly stupid that human mankind that has the ability to build an International space station, a marvel of human collective engineering, of knowledge passed down from the first carved flint arrow-head to the written word is so bent on self-destruction.

Why?

The answer is staring us all in the face. If you have anything there is nothing to lose.

Inequality is the source of most of to days worlds woes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will emerging technology save us or destroy us all.

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

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A thought!

It has being a summer of bad news.

Geopolitical turmoil, Carbon spewing into the atmosphere, Ebola spreading, Global warming, Species and Forests disappearing, Ice melting, Inequality rampant, while Sovereign Wealth Funds privatize the world resources for profit.

All of this pales in comparison to what could be inflicted by high-tech nightmares that are awaiting in the long grass.

Bio-engineered pandemic, nanotechnology or Nano biotechnology gone haywire, AI run amok all could kill far quicker than ISIS or Capitalism.

Accidental self-destruction by any of the above is more than possible.

When you realize that there are people out there experimenting in their garden sheds. Recently Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the university of Wisconsin engineered a strain of the deadly virus Swine flu than could evade the immune system. At least he did it in a proper Laboratory.

Nanotech is endeavoring to engineer microscopic factories of self-replicating bots with the power to make anything out of common materials.

If this was to happen we could have omnivorous bacteria that would wipe out real bacteria that could spread like pollen reducing the biosphere to dust.

AI on the other had if we get it right could be the best thing to happen in the universe, but get it wrong we wont be colonizing anywhere.

At the moment we spend more on lipstick than making sure our species survives.

Maybe its time we created another one of those useless World organisations to monitor emerging technology just in case it comes back to bit us all.

           

 

Lets Call a Spade a Spade. ISIS are maniacs in foreign lands that want war.

05 Sunday Oct 2014

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They say that the beginning of wisdom lies in recognizing the facts.

Let me start by saying that the title of this piece does not reflect my personal opinion. I believe no matter what you call them, ISIS, ISIL, or the Islamic State, that these barbaric maniacs are everyone’s problem.

It is easy to write and express one’s opinion but it is a totally different kettle of fish if you were the person that had to send young men and woman into war.

Most wars are started by nations look to their own self-interest in the final analysis. Greed – the desire for more power and more territory.

* Religious idealism * Corrupt governments * Discontent and poverty * starts wars.

This war has all the ingredients combined into one.

If you don’t believe me watch one of the beheadings they perform on video for the entertainment of the masses.  If you don’t think ISIS is our enemy TODAY, you are seriously misguided and potentially delusional.

The question is how do we stop them from driving around flying black flags and saying, ‘Hey, come blow us up’…

Is it too late, and will more violence only embed the current positions? ( Leaving a cesspool of frustrated terrorist armed to the teeth to fight it out between themselves.)

Should we say we’ve done enough damage and all that can be done now is bomb them.

Is it naive, the obtuse or the dishonest to believe (or profess to believe) that trying harder will have the slightest chance of producing a different and more favorable outcome?

Twenty-three years after Operation Desert Storm laid the basis for George H.W. Bush’s ‘new world order’ and 11 years after George W. Bush went his father one better by capturing Baghdad itself — ‘Mission Accomplished’ —

The Iraq war has resumed in the form of a small-scale but apparently open-ended air campaign.

As the United States and its Coalition partners moves into the eighth week of its bombing campaign against the Islamic State, we still have little info about the scope, duration and cost both in human terms and financial, or what will be in place when ISIS is destroyed?

Is there or should there be any strategic objective? Other than U.S. weapons being used on both sides.

Libya is an example of the disasters that U.S. wars leave behind them — a war, by the way, with U.S. weapons used on both sides, and a war launched on the pretext of a claim well documented to have been false that Gaddafi was threatening to massacre civilians.

The answer is that there is no long-term strategy. 

The present military of bombing is just a substitute for strategy, indeed, for acknowledging the fact that nearly a quarter-century of military involvement in Iraq and in the Middle East more generally has produced next to nothing of value.

Regardless of how well we do the job it is quite obvious that the Iraqi government isn’t going to be able to hold up. With another x amount of years of war and it is certain that any little hope of forging any durable political order will be destroyed.

Together with its neighbor Syria ( supported by Moscow who suspects Washington’s ulterior motive is removal of its ally, Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad) like Syria it will end up as waste land of religious fractions fighting it out over what ever oil is left.

So where are we to-day. 

Today, ISIS and al-Qaeda compete for influence over Islamist extremist groups around the world. Some experts believe ISIS may overtake al-Qaeda as the most influential group in this area globally.

Isis now controls territory the size of the UK, it is making £600,000 a day from oil and has a fighting force of 10,000 militants, according to a leading expert.

Isis offers fighters more money than any group in the region – $400 (£243) a month – and offers more military equipment, to boot. Isis is trading of antiquities, some up to 8,000 years old, from which they are thought to have made around $36 million (£21.8 million) from just one region of Syria. ISIS is selling oil by the barrel on the black market for between $25 and $65 (£15 and £40), the terror group is thought to be raking in around $2 million (£1.2 million) a day.

From Syria they could be making double or even triple that.

There is no doubt the ‘Islamic State’ poses a danger of sorts to USA and Europe but the danger is negligible.

The United States plans to train and arm an initial 5,000 Syrian rebels, but this would not be a sufficient number to retake territory seized by the Islamic State.

The longer we wait to annihilate these barbaric monsters, the heavier the cost will be.

To have any chance the U.S. would need to train between 12,000 and 15,000, the costs would likely run between $200 and $320 million per month, This adds up to $2.4 to $3.8 billion per year. The deployment of 25,000 U.S. troops on the ground, as some have recommended, costs would likely reach $1.1 to $1.8 billion per month, and $13 to $22 billion annually.

All wonderful for the arms industry.

Even if this was to happen and ISIS were wiped off the face of the earth there will be a need to leave troops and supporting structure in place for decades to avoid repeating the mistakes of unleashes responses beyond the control of the actors as now is all too evident.

This is exactly how ISIS came into existence in the first place.

The U.S. and its junior partners destroyed Iraq, left a sectarian division, poverty, desperation, and an illegitimate government in Baghdad that did not represent Sunnis or other groups.

While the Syrian government declared war on its own people.  Almost 200,000 people had already died in this conflict, and 3 million made homeless it is no wonder that we have given birth to a monster called ISIS.

President Obama, recently said, “We don’t have a strategy yet for fighting ISIS.” He acknowledged that a group like ISIS “is beyond the pale; that they have no vision or ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people. And as a consequence, we got to all join together – even if we have differences on a range of political issues – to make sure that they’re rooted out.

I would respectively point out that ISIS is in possession of U.S. weaponry provided directly to it in Syria and seized from the Iraqi government.

The U.S. armed and  trained ISIS and allied groups in Syria, while continuing to prop up the Baghdad government, providing Hellfire missiles with which to attack Iraqis in Fallujah and elsewhere.

At last count by the U.S. government, 79% of weapons transferred to Middle Eastern governments come from the United States, not counting transfers to groups like ISIS, and not counting weapons in the possession of the United States.

You don’t have to be a General or Military expert to see that unless the world mounts a massive ground offensive ISIS will not be defeated. They will melt into what is left of the civilian population and the vast territorial lands they now hold.

The sooner they feel the full force of the world led by American (who has the largest obligation to retake the arms they brought or gave to the region) the sooner we can move to a peaceful solution and an eventual victory over radical Islamic terror that wants to control the world.

It entails destroying the Syria’s Assad regime, and shoring up the Afghanistan’s new President Ashraf Ghani who recently took office in the country’s first democratic transfer of power, making a pledge to stamp out corruption and calling for peace with the Taliban insurgents who marked the day with a fresh attack in Kabul.

After all blood and treasure spent in Afghanistan US delegation to Ghani inauguration will not include any cabinet members.”

My suggestion is grow-up and face the reality.

Washington refuses to consider working with Russia as long as Moscow insists that U.S. strikes need Syrian and U.N. approval.

Our, and the USA  only choice is to kill them before they kill us. If not the United States would be better served simply to butt out and leave it to the Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran who are more directly threatened and in a far better positioned to deal with it. What a blood bath that would be.

The Big question as always is what will we leave in place if and when ISIS is destroyed. What are the desired end state in both Iraq and Syria, not to mention Afghanistan?

Bombing nations into ruins, and shipping more arms that will eventual turn up on our door steps is no solution.

Removing Inequality/poverty, with education, healthy and fair trade, is the long-term resolution to the worlds sorry state.

As I said at the start of this post God forbid any of us had to order young lives into a war. I like all of us can only hope and offer our sincere sympathy with those that have already losses their liver and love ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should Immigration be Legalized ?

02 Thursday Oct 2014

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The immigration debate is a timeless one, and will continue to be so.

It is fundamentally the story of the human race from its origins to the present.

Migration is an integral aspect of life on this planet. People move to survive. It can be divisive, or it can unite a country or a region. Refugees and seekers of sanctuary should be treated humanely, kept from destitution, and should be allowed to work if we take a long time to determine their claims – indeed, they should be expected to in the same way any of us is expected to.

At the moment we are only seeing the tip of the Iceberg.  Wait till climate change starts to move people.

Global warming and resource depletion have no boundaries.

Indeed, given the massive migrations to come, due among others to climate change and economic opportunities, it’s a question that needs some proper thinking.

As a reminder, let me quote a 2009 United Nations Populations Fund report:

“Estimating future climate change-related population flows presents [a great] challenge, with figures ranging wildly from 50 million to 1 billion people by the middle of the century, either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. The most widely used estimate of people to be displaced by environmental factors by 2050 is 200 million” – compared to the current 25 million.

Some feel that these environmental issues cannot be addressed by nations acting individually. Thus, they might argue that the movement of people around the globe becomes the province of the world, not that of individual nations.

” There go I but for the grace of God”

So where to start? “Let’s start with the obvious:

Most of us are nations of immigrants.  The death toll is increasing as more people are attempting to illegally enter countries. We still have to confront the reality of Migration.

“What can happen will happen but we can’t let it happen.”

It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just that I was better-off before you came
will have no place in future thinking.

So let me propose a possible solution to what is presently happening.

I cannot see for the life of me if we ignore for the moment the myriad of ethical issues and questions, why in this age of ( no where to hide)  technology, it is not possible to get all Immigrants at the point on entry to fully understand and sign a legal document of review. The document commits the Immigrant to returning to his or hers country of origin once the war/conflict is over. It could allow entry like a visa to stay for a period of five years.

Would this not be better than the tragedies we witness every day.

A person enters a country with a proper Legalized non transferable, non replicated, free, world recognizable Card with a personal pin Id number (other than a passport)  They would not have to live in constant fear of being detained and deported. ( Immigrants must endure intolerance and suspicion, while navigating the complexities of assimilating to a language and a culture foreign to their own.)

The difficulties occur when it is time to find them, (without a tracking bracelet) when the review comes due.

So this solution seems to simplify and objectify the issues and does not serve any useful purpose, because unless it is know-en where they came from in the first place they cannot be returned.

One way or the other it might help stop Trafficking and also stop illegal immigrants causing unemployment.

It would make it more difficult to create a cover for terrorists and criminal.

Undocumented immigrants may have to accept jobs far below their skill level, and endure blatant discrimination but at least they would have some legal dignity.

Who are the migrants of today?

Refugees of war-torn countries, Economic of poverty ridden countries, Natural disasters, or illegal traffic people, drought, plagues, floods, or other natural disasters have triggered migration. Modern Slavery, escape from slavery, invasions, and exile have created forced migration.

The human condition is complex, as are the reasons for migration.

  • What are the costs of migration? What is the cost in terms of lives lost?
  • What are the financial costs both to the migrant and to the countries involved?
  • How does society measure the risks and benefits of migration?
  • Can these risks and benefits be measured?
  • Do nations have an ethical obligation to do the least harm to migrants when establishing and enforcing immigration laws?
  • How should discussions about migration be conducted?
  • Whose voices should be included in such discussions?

So how do we understand the needs and rights of those who migrate?

Can countries to close their borders at all costs, or do they have some obligation to minimize the harm to persons crossing their borders an obligation beyond those they owe their citizens? If not, then what entity has the power and will to protect migrants? Are migration issues best served when addressed nationally, regionally, or internationally through orderly processes and clear laws? Or are there times that individual citizens or communities can and should address migration issues outside of national laws and legal processes?

Yesterday the total of Syrian Refugees surpassed 3.5 million.almost all in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, with smaller numbers in Iraq and Egypt.

To put this into perspective, Europe has a population of 670 million people.

Contrast that to Lebanon, which has a population of 4.4 million people and has received 1.1 million refugees.”Syria could potentially produce millions more refugees, since more than 6.5 million people are displaced within the country and there is no end in sight to the war.

So far 17 European countries have offered to resettle 31,800 of the most needy refugees. Russia an ally of President Bashar al-Assad – has not granted refugee status to a single Syrian, although it granted 1,193 temporary asylum requests in 2013.

There have been 123,600 asylum requests, mostly in Sweden and Germany, but that figure includes double counting, since some have asked for asylum in several countries. Europe must open its doors to more Syrian refugees, having welcomed only a “minuscule” number.  In more than 3 years of war, very few Syrians have made it to continental Europe.

What responsibilities do countries have to migrants?

Who decides what those limits are?

The UNHCR wants the continent to host 100,000 such cases, an average of about 3,000 per country.

Human beings have migrated since their origin. This migration has ranged from journeys of a few miles to epic travels across oceans and continents.  Adventurers have sought new land, fame, fortune, or power. Formation of empires, colonies, and nation states have taken people across Asia, Africa, Europe, Russia, the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, and Iceland.

Globalization these days is frequently viewed in economic and environmental terms. Goods and services move easily across regions and national boundaries. With this growing economic interdependence, some would argue that it is only natural that people (labor) follow the capital, wherever that might take them. Similarly, some argue that people should not have to move for jobs, but instead governments should encourage capital to remain in the nation and should protect jobs for citizens.

The growing interdependence of economies regionally and globally is a good predictor that migration will not be stagnant and that it will follow increasingly more complex patterns.

As the population of receiving countries age, how do nations best address the need for a young labor force and a need for care providers for an older population?

How has out-sourcing and re-location of businesses affected migration?

Others believe that in order for countries to protect their environment they need to restrict immigration. What are the limits on the power of countries to control or affect migration? How are the needs and rights of migrants to be balanced against those of the people from the sending, transit, and receiving countries?

 

Restrictive and selective immigration has been promoted by proponents as a way to preserve the cultural roots of the host country.

Many citizens and illegal aliens are competing for jobs, but because the undocumented immigrants are available for tougher jobs with lower wages, the companies are hiring them causing the citizens to lose their opportunities.

All of this raises many questions and no answers.

How can nations balance businesses’ need for additional labor with concerns about departure or arrival of large numbers of migrants?

  • Do businesses prefer to hire and train immigrant workers because it creates a labor force beholden to the employers?
  • Is it ethical to deny safe haven or opportunities for a better life to migrants in order to protect the environment of a particular country?
  • How should policy makers balance the concerns of environmentalists with the need for a growing supply of labor?
  • Does it matter that while demand for labor fluctuates, the environment is less able to change or recover?
  • Does increasing the labor force through immigration to care for an aging population create an exponential need for future immigrants to care for this labor force as it ages?
  • Is it necessary to prepared to periodically re-assess our assumptions and theories in order for policy to keep pace with shifting migration patterns?
  • Can policy change at the speed that migration can now occur?
  • What investments must nations make to keep pace with the technology, the speed, and the changing methods of migration?
  • Some might argue that this trend is a positive one. Others might disagree and would urge the use of national resources to stem the tide of globalization in order to protect the integrity of nation states, their boundaries, and their economies. Some might posit that globalization is occurring in spite of nation-states, while others would argue that globalization is the product of decisions and actions taken by nation-states.
  • If changes in the movement of goods and services mean the movement of people will also change, are leaders and policy makers.

When discussing ethics in the context of migration, it is important to remember first and foremost that migration is about the movement of people. Because the ethics of migration hi-lite the tension between individuals and nations, these discussions should always begin and end with the acknowledgement of the humanity of those who are moving and those who do not move.

Is migration systematic or is it organic?

The UK and Europeans states exploited overseas countries and therefore should be obligated to help these countries by allowing their entry. The USA was founded by Immigrants.

When I started writing this post I had no idea of the complexity of the subject. It cause tremendous tremors on our social conscious, with more questions than answers.

But I have learned something I will be one of the the lucky ones to have immigrated to the land of permanent nod as it will be worse than a nuclear war.  

A ship load of hope against hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are there reasonable and legal limits to free expression ?

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Now this is an interesting and complex question.

Far too big a subject to be addressed by my comparatively little brain or written about in a few hundred words. However we all know that stifling free expression is counterproductive.

So is Freedom of expression still a universal human right?

Is it the 
lynch pin
 of
 democracy?

The Internet is by its very nature border less, but it is still intimately connected to the physical world, and as such to the territories of sovereign nation states.

Therefore, states can significantly influence the free flow of information, expression and free speech.

An open and free Internet is a key means by which individuals can exercise their right to freedom of opinion, expression, association and assembly. However, these freedoms in our present world cannot on one hand be absolute and on the other they have to be absolute.

Freedom of information is a fundamental element of freedom of expression, with the Internet a key instrument for the exercise of the right to freedom of expression.

This is the Quandary.

Because when you turn to Google with a question, the search engine must decide, at that moment, what “answers” to give, and in what order to put those answers.

Is it commercializes something that is not commerceable? And if so is there a compelling argument that computerized decisions should be considered speech?

Computers as you know make trillions of invisible decisions each day.

Gone are the days of waiting for the evening news to present events occurring on the battlefield. Gone are the days of relying on professional journalists, or embedded reporters, to paint the day-to-day picture of the world.

Gone are the days that the Internet was merely an alternative communicative channel.

What will its impact be on free speech?

I believe in the long run it is going to be the down fall of free speech and expression.

Cyberspace today is an important part of living as a private and public individual in the modern world. It is a way of speaking and listening; an essential part of being human, but is it turning into a privatized “wild west”, where individuals’ expressions and information retrieval is not subject to arbitrary restrictions with no judicial review or democratic legitimacy.

Should non human or automated choices be granted the full protection of Free Speech?

Is it time for states to grant these expressions the same protection, which we apply to expressions in the physical world ?

Self-regulation is a dangerous path when applied to public sphere communication.

My answer is –  No Cyberspace should not be allocated such a high status.

Why?

Because Extremists –often claim to speak for whole communities.

Because if we are not careful the potential result is that we get a homogenised, sanitised universal culture that either gives offense to none or is controlled by the most vocal and powerful group whatever the rest of the populace may want or believe.

In July 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Committee confirmed the central role of freedom of expression in human rights, making it clear that it can only be limited in the most exceptional circumstances, and calling for the first time for unrestricted public access to official information.

Now we all know that there cannot be a democratic society without the fundamental right to freedom of expression but the internet is allowing new means for humans to express themselves. Hong Kong as I write is expressing all over social net works its unwillingness to have Beijing puppets put up for election.

Because in today’s world, we have delegated many of our daily decisions to computers. On the drive to work, a GPS device suggests the best route; at your desk, Microsoft Word guesses at your misspellings, and Facebook recommends new friends.

In the past few years, the suggestion has been made that when computers make such choices they are “speaking,” and should enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. Free Speech.

Because the internet connectives which the internet provides to humans today makes it possible for soldiers in Iraq to post their thoughts and reflections regarding an upcoming or recently accomplished mission, to include pictures and video, on a blog in Iraq and within seconds this news from the front can be read by thousands if not millions of people world-wide.

Everyone has the right to associate freely through and on the Internet, for social, political, cultural or other purposes. There are efforts by a number of states including Russia, China and Iran to increase state control of the internet within their territories.

The Internet is a space for the promotion, protection and fulfillment of human rights and the advancement of social justice. While governments have an important obligation in protecting and furthering internet freedom, the very nature of the Internet means that civil society, the private sector and academia also need to be involved in discussions on internet governance not just Governments.

Free speech is essential to a free society because, when you deny people ‘an opportunity to act like normal political parties’, there’s nothing left for them to do but punch your lights out. Just look at what is happening with a culture like ISIS  that can’t bear a dissenting word on race or religion or gender fluidity. It is a barbarous society that will cease to innovate, and then stagnate, and then decline, very fast if left alone.

Another growing causes for concern is that diverse voices of the non-religious are either not being heard or are not equally valued: Religious voices are claiming their right to freedom of expression but at the cost of non-religious voices being silenced.

The ability to freely speak your mind is widely seen as a natural right, in other words a government (or any other institution) can’t grant you this right, only take it away. A liberal society is one which is content to call ‘true’ (or ‘right’ or ‘just’) whatever the outcome of undistorted communication happens to be, whatever view wins in a free and open encounter.

If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all.

We live, in ‘interesting’ times, from Islam and Israel to global warming and gay marriage.

Within the EU,internet there is no specific (foreign) policy agenda for internet freedom.

So the question I started out with might sound like a fanciful question, a matter of philosophy or science fiction but a world where real, primal, universal rights — like freedom of expression is where I want to live.

Everyone has the duty to respect the human rights of all others in the online environment.

     How about You!

 

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This is your every day world.

29 Monday Sep 2014

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When you take time out from the bubble of your life you would have to be blind, deaf and a Pillock not to notice that the world you live in both Physically and Financially in an almighty mess, if not out of control.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html#

The Number of Countries involved in wars 64. The Number Militias-guerrillas and separatist groups involved 571.

The ongoing growth in population of roughly 10,026 people per hour or 240,624 people per day is unsustainable according to many sources. The internet states that our world population is growing at about 9,000 people per hour or 220,000 people per day, but if you go by the World Population’s Clock, World population right now is by the time you have read this.

http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking

When I look around me here in France I see field upon field doing sweet fanny Adam ( due to Set aside a European Agricultural Policy called The Common Agricultural Policy CAP for Short which insures the highest prices for farmers), when it could be growing cheap food at a fair price, instead of expensive tomatoes to bombard Brussels with each year.

Every day I hear and see death and destruction in some part of the world.

Every day I hear appeals from the United Nations to do something about poverty, climate change, forests, fresh water, pollution, ocean warming, while 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Every day according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.

Every day around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Every day the world’s countries spent $1.7tn on their militaries.

Every day more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening at an alarming rate.

Every day the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

Every day based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers.

Every day nearly a billion people unable to read a book or sign their names.

Every day there are 1.29 billion people were living in absolute poverty. Of these, about 400 million people in absolute poverty lived in India and 173 million people in China., 45.3 million in USA which is suppose to be the riches and most powerful.

World Government spending on space programs is in the region of 72,1 billion

India spent £45 million to orbit Mars, and China spent 7.33 trillion going nowhere, USA off the map- Man on the moon and Curiosity to find water.

Every day we destroy ecosystems of other species to find dwindling resources.

Every day people who practice asceticism intentionally live in economic poverty so as to attain spiritual wealth.

Every day world hunger is the result of greedy and inept leadership in individual country.

Every day the supply of basic needs can be restricted by constraints on government services such as corruption, debt and loan conditionality and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals.

Every day  there is more demand for space to live and more resources being used which in turn generates more waste to be dealt with.

Every day we need more space to live on there is also the need for more space to grow the food, be it crops and/or livestock to meet the ever-increasing demand. The only way we can meet these needs is to encroach on our ecosystem and reduce it each time we do so. Every time we take natural land for building.

Every day we hear strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable and to eradicate Inequities.

Every day I hear Exploitation in the form of child labor, modern day slavery, rampant corruption, drug wars, murders by the dozens, child molestation, ethnic and racial cleansing.

Every day  the Economy. While Sovereignty Funds privatize the world, and computer soft ware rip us all off every second.

Every day we witness poverty on your own doorstep. The “silent” day-to-day hunger that occurs all over the world. Poverty can be understood simply as a lack of money, or more broadly in terms of barriers to everyday life. Not famine hunger when typically we feel compelled to send money or even volunteer. The worst type of hunger because it is the result of some form of natural disaster.

The list goes on and on. So you don’t need to be a rocket scientists to figure out why it is that we are in such a mess.

If you have nothing you have nothing to lose. Why not fly a plane into the World Trade Center, why not don a new uniform and get a free gun with some status whether it be good or evil. Who cares life not worth living anyway.

What can be done about it?  Not much till every nation has an equal footing in the United Nations, till there is no need for NATO, till we get rid of the IMF and the World Bank, till Climate Changes make us all change. ( see previous Postings )

Feel free to suggest what you see every day. Every day we have choices.

We live today in an age sustainababble* ( correct me if it not a word) a cacophonous profusion of uses of the word sustainable to mean anything from environmentally better, to cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A

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There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as western powers intervene into Arab affairs.

27 Saturday Sep 2014

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Now I am no Historian so the Biblical and Historical Origins of the Problems in the Middle East are to say the least some what beyond me.

Anyway for what its worth here is my stab at explaining the Middle East.

Tell me if I am wrong.

In light of the attacks of 9/11 the big question to answer was why.

Why do these people hate us so much.?

So much that they are willing to give their own lives simply to kill, to start a war, or make a statement.

The answer to this question truly lies in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and the utter failure that Westernization has been in the Middle East.

As far as I can see the present day situation in Israel may be the most difficult political situation in world history.

It alone dates back to thousands of years before Christ when the Israelites left Egypt after two hundred years of bondage they began forty years of wandering the desert in which they encountered many enemy tribes such as their sworn enemies, the Amalekites.

While these days, the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes place at a domestic level, its roots, as well as the frequent failed attempts at peace that spanned the 20th century, stemmed from international interference and mismanagement.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been one of the defining political issues in the Middle East for decades.

Since its inception the State of Israel has been at war with the Arab countries surrounding it.

The ethnic conflict theory explains that it is not territory, politics, or economics that prevents the achievement of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people’s, instead, it is a deep-seated hatred of one another that neither group can overcome.

Unless they do so by some miracle and form one nation (which will be the saving of the Middle East) there will be no coming back from a full scale perhaps nuclear war.

It is simplistic and self serving for political leaders in the West to tell us that the terrorists attacks happen because they “hate freedom,” or “hate our democratic values” or “they despise our love of liberty.” Many, in fact, hate what they perceive as materialistic Western values, but this is not what leads them to kill themselves in suicide bombings, or to murder thousands of innocent civilians it is the paranoid rhetoric about Western attacks against Islam elsewhere that is spreading from the religious fringe to the mainstream and now ISIS.

Indeed, the events of the past few years have broken the precarious old Middle East order without replacing it with a new order. And although rival
external and regional players have been pushing their own agendas for a new
regional order, none of them has prevailed. The competition among these rival visions and forces appears destined to continue in the years ahead.

So what is the middle east?  It would be easy to describe it as an area of the world, a simply a breeding ground for turmoil, and has been for centuries.

Now, however, the region can expansively be said to contain “the area from Libya E to Afghanistan, usually including Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the other countries of the Arabian peninsula”so the Middle East can only be loosely defined, and it is important to know that these countries are separate and do not truly form one cooperative unit.

Within this vast area there are many different nationalities within their population including Arabians, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakistanians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, and many more.

The most common religion found in the Middle East is Muslim. However not every Middle Easterner is Muslim, there are also other religions just as in any country such as Christian and Jewish.

So here is no set definition for the area known as the Middle East since shifts in global power over the years have affected the topography.

Many dynasties and kingdoms have ruled the area of what we now call the Middle East.

In almost all of the societies, it is the wealthier, educated, and a particular race or ethnicity that ruled. These positions were usually acquired through power, either by a civil war or an overthrow of the previous government.

Not every country mentioned above has the same access to the water sources, which will naturally cause problems. …. (Water Issues in the Middle East One would think there are enough conflicts to be had in the Middle East.)

Of the many conflicts that revolve around the area’s history, politics, religion, territory or ethnicity, one more can be added to the group: Water.

These societies all need water, but not all have the same resources to get to that water.

This is a hotbed of vice in this area as only a few of the countries in the Middle East have total control over their own water, leaving most of the others to depend on the graces of those few countries to manage their water magnanimously enough to supply them with what they need.

For example, Israel has control of the Golan, and Egypt of the Nile, and Kuwait of the Persian Gulf. Oil is in abundance, but only to a limited number of countries in the Middle East causing great economic disparity between those who have, and those who do not. Kuwait, having access to the Persian Gulf, produces a large supply of oil to international players. Given its high value internationally, and its worth.

But this is not the main reason behind the difficulties of bringing Peace to the Middle East.

A major source of conflict in the Middle East during the last fifty years has been the dispute between Arabs and Jews over Palestine.

For hundreds of years, the great majority of the people living in Palestine were Arabs. But at the end of the nineteenth century some Jews in Europe were becoming increasingly bitter about growing anti-Semitism. They started to talk about setting up a state of their own where they would be free from persecution. The conflict itself can be dated to 1948, when the state of Israel established independence, but the underlying problems responsible for the creation of Israel, and as a result, the conflict, can be traced back as far as the 19th century.

Now it far too difficult to track back through the centuries the History to the sorry state of the Middle East.

Lets just say its full of stories of betrayal. If you want one just look at what the British did with caretaker of Mecca Sharif Husayn in 1914.

Anyway its water under the bridge, but for any serious understanding it will have to be swum in.

We will put our toe in.  At the end of world war one when the Allies had secretly carved up most of the Middle East among themselves in what came to be known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916 which I am sure you have all heard about.

No. Not surprised. It was a secret agreement between the British and French involving the partition of the ottoman empire.

It effectively handed over the control of Syria, Lebanon and Turkish Cilicia to the French and Plalestine, Jordon and areas around the Persian Gulf and Baghdad to the British. It was never completely fulfilled because Valdimir Lenin who was to have influence in Turkish Armenia and Northern Kurdistan took the hump and released it to the press.

Moving on.

The Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha said this statement below on September 16, 1947, eight months before the state of Israel was established.

” But it’s too late to talk of peaceful solutions”

The Arabs held this mentality in a time when Israel was not yet a fact.

To Day there can be no solution to the Middle East until the Israelites and  Palestinian people come together. If they form separated states the war will go on and on.

At the moment we have numerous conflicts that have the potential to join up into a WAR.

Conflict: A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.  War: A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties“

To stop this happening  America should set a time-table to withdraw its financial and military aid to Israel unless it offers a one nation solution giving equal right to all. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage.

There are more than seven million Muslims living in America what has Israel to fear.

I know that this is a very simplistic solution’s to a problem that has been festered for centuries and has now burst like a boil into a Barbaric group called ISIS.

Bombs and guns (which will swap hands) will no doubt change frontiers and kill many but they will not and can not eradicate ethnic conflicts that are well rooted in the world’s history and perhaps inherent in human nature.

Come on Israel extend the hand of peace and tear down the walls of occupation.

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PS. You might wonder why I HAVE LEFT OUT recent Invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and all other recent developments. It seems to me that there is little point in highlighting the mistakes that have contributed to worsening of the present day state of play.  We will all have different fingers of blame to point whether they are pointed at Osama bin Laden, Bush, Blair, Bush, Saddam Hussein, Obama , Bashar al-Assad, Hamid Karzi, over the centuries we HAVE ALL CONTRIBUTED.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing how to Google something is not enough.

26 Friday Sep 2014

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Like me I am sure you look at our world and wonder how has it got its self in such a mess.

If anything, the amount of knowledge one needs to know to make sense of today’s issues is staggering.

Putting inequality and greed aside, the lack togetherness has to be one of the main problems. We with our interconnected world have little if any appreciation or understanding of other cultures in the world.

So has technology plunged the world into its present day state?

”You can look anything up on you iPad, so you don’t have to know anything (“factual mastery is become less and less important.”)

Real knowledge and understanding is going out the door. In order to have a conversation, or to contemplate or invent something, you must have the information in your head, so that you can combine it with other information that is also in your head. There’s no time to “look it up. You can only work with what’s in your head. That’s why computers don’t just have hard disks, they also have “working memory.

Or is the Internet making us more skilled at asking questions, or is it more important that it is parroting answers to someone else’s questions.

I can’t help wondering what will happen if we rely mainly on electronic devices to provide information…..and then there’s a blackout.

Then who has the floor?

The person who actually KNOWS something and can articulate it. The guy looking it upon the iphone plays second fiddle.  Who do you think would win? The guy with the knowledge, and therefore, quick retorts in his head, or the one fumbling with the Ipad?

Unfortunately, this is the road we are going down. I don’t see how present days technologist are creating knowledge to improve the world. This can only be true when a microchip can be implanted in my head so that my brain can draw on all the knowledge it needs to reason and think creatively. We can’t fix a human problem with a pure technological solution. I am also afraid to tell you that technology is no replacement for caring.

Education is a dance. A theatrical moving-about. It requires more than a dump of information and a hologram or computer or Smart Phone to be Intelligent.

You might think I am talking unadulterated crap but the best educated of most of us learned was what we did it with a pencil, some paper, an adult teacher and some chalk in a classroom. Miraculously such people got a man on the moon. The very idea of computers was invented by such people (Bill Gates and the late Stephen Jobs were in their middle 50s).

Humans have always worked in collaboration for important achievements. Unfortunately these days factual mastery is becoming less and less important.

We are into a hodgepodge of moment-driven quantitative analyses.

We now have Teenagers who have a great knowledge of math and science but no capability to understand what the value of it is beyond a paycheck they might earn.

Why learn a foreign language when there is Google Translate?  We persist in using skin color as a way of defining individuals.

The capability of the human mind to keep knowledge does not increase at the same rate as the expansion of knowledge. Learning is never done and there is no arbitrary point where we are ready for the real world.

At least becoming proficient, in another language is key to global integration, not the reverse.

In this computer-driven age more and more exams in many subjects are multiple choice guessing contests graded by computer – and even math exams require one to enter the problem’s solution in an exact and strictly timed format, making it possible to get all the right answers and still fail for lack of ability to perform data entry with sufficient dexterity and speed.

You hear these day with the current terrorism in the world that young people are being radicalized. Why?

  1. Because the wheels of commerce are supercharged by the electricity of a million of Hippocratic hand shakes. USA-Iran,Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestinian.
  2. Because the alternative of the ignorant is to rely on some talking head.
  3. Because New technologies are profoundly altering the way knowledge is conveyed.
  4. Because the pursuit of knowledge and skills is too expensive.
  5. Because we don’t educate our young to gain a full range of basic intellectual skills. Value, Curiosity, Tolerance, Respect, Creativity.
  6. Because ethical thinking which is crucial for individuals and societies to better address and deal with public policy issues is a forgotten as a moral philosophy, leaving a void to radicalization, away from the materialistic world.
  7. Because we have forgotten that Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it.  It has degenerated over the last two generations from a reflective science that gave value to life through the deep thinking of individuals and the careful review of their peers into I am all right Jack syndrome.
  8. Because we rely almost entirely on passive learning.  To follow in over-trodden paths of conventionalism. If the goal is to turn students into robot-like performers they’ll certainly accomplish it, but how much can you expect the many problems in the real world to be solved by robots?
  9. Because a big part of stopping radicalization and having students thrive is to give them people to emulate, and people who support their dreams. At the rate and direction we are headed I wonder if students will be able to answer what is 13 squared without a calculator or recall who fought in WWI or II.
  10. Because we should pay for students to spend a semester or more abroad.  An educational experience worth every penny of its extra cost. To Master  A Language. would be far more beneficial than; mastering, or rethinking how to more effectively prepare.
  11. Because we need to do away the basic notion that you have to learn something in order to be able to move toward higher level skills of thinking and analysis. So it can go down more easily with students who were raised on the internet.
  12. Because the current system of grouping pupils by age across all subjects by force is archaic.
  13. Because the idea that data and collaboration are “coming” is absurd. We need an education system the is flexible enough to be custom tailored to each student without the necessity to change any part of the system itself. The capability of the human mind to keep knowledge does not increase at the same rate as the expansion of knowledge.”It’s a common error to believe language exists in a vacuum, that by simply sharing a common lexicon the world’s social, economic and political barriers will fall like leaves in an autumn wind.
  14. Because Specialization is for insects.
  15. Because teaching Mandarin to the next generation wouldn’t be a bad idea, as a one-way communication of English will otherwise lead to global misunderstanding.
  16. Because naked greed, willful ignorance, and incompetence – are as common as daylight. Let’s also deliver thoughtfulness.
  17. Because  A good example is the concept of our living in a heliocentric system rather than a earth-centric system.
  18. Because it was impossible to think seriously about the future many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.
  19. Because there is a huge difference between sheer memorization of a tremendous amount of data and actually knowing how to use that data.

Do people leave college with an accurate robust knowledge of probability?

No. It is only attained.

Most things are as untrue as they are true.

“A human being should be able to change a nappy, plan an invasion, butcher a pig, steer a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

The purpose of public education is to teach students to think, give students real skills, and give students experiences that require use of both.

University is a preserver of the past in terms of values and outlooks and shared “facts.”

Those who do not know history and have not thought about it, repeat its mistakes use Google, Safari Library or externalized knowledge stores.

.The initial development of revolutionary ideas come from individuals.

Isn’t this the way we should be handing the reins of government, over and over, to the “best and brightest”

That one expert will, one hopes, teach the controversies about the war, rather than simply teaching their own opinions as fact, but there’s still a real danger of creating an intellectual mono culture that might, like genetically modified crops, have a shared vulnerability.

We’ve already got this  (think Tea Party and climate change or evolution).

Educators have a huge problem on their hands as to how to offload their brain empower students to be creators, rather than mere consumers.

Da Vinci today alone cannot build an jet-airplane. The people who designed the microchips, wrote the operative system, made the special glass, and so on weren’t specialists?

Let me tell you the first time as a young man I went to see the Eiffel Tower it was surrounded by pigeons now it’s surrounded by machine guns.

Its time we taught values not just our values, values that we all share and need to live on this plant in Peace.

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