Research shows the US is a low wage country By Mark Thoma
April 23, 2012
(MoneyWatch) – Recent research from John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research shows that the US leads developed countries in the share of workers earning low wages. The research also shows that increased wage polarization over the last several decades is one of the reasons for the large share of low wage-work in the US. The bars in this graph represent the share of workers in low wage work, where low wage work is defined as employees earning less than 2/3 of the median wage (approximately $10 per hour or $20,000 per year). In this category, the US leads among developed nations…
When we worked on the Manhunting Project for SOCOM, the US Marshall's Service said that fugitive hunting was all about network analysis. The IC doesn't understand network analysis as the bean counters push for numbers….they focus on low hanging fruit and as a result there is always some guy out there ready to step up and take the foot soldier's place (not so much the upper echelons). Try to tell an IC drone that it is all about the network and you will get a deer in the headlight look….
Police forces have spent decades combating organised crime with well-practised techniques, but can the same tactics be the key to defeating insurgencies on the front line? Former police officer, federal marshal, and JIEDDO FOX team member Louis J. DeAnda tells Defence IQ how we need to take a holistic strategy to IED network attack…
Phi Beta Iota: Completely apart from the corruption at the top of both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, this is an extraordinary–a gifted–contribution to the literature. It is reproduced in full below the line to preserve it as a reference.
Scott Borg: Cyber warfare will require us to rethink every aspect of defence. Our current weapons and defence systems will still be needed, but the way we use them will become very different. A major cyber assault could completely bypass our military forces. It would not require incoming airplanes, missiles, ships, or troops. The attack could suddenly appear inside the computerized equipment of our major industries. The identity of the country or organization that was responsible could be impossible to determine quickly or with complete confidence. The cyber assault could cause almost any kind of damage that could be produced by the human operators of computerized equipment. In fact, a cyber attack could cause many kinds of damage that the human operators of industrial equipment could only achieve by reprogramming their controls.
Phi Beta Iota: Nobody has learned anything since NSA first learned about hackers and then was told to focus on both the security of corporation communications and the need for a national secure information infrastructure. The above perspective is uninformed, and also dangerous for its idiotic suggestion that we should militarize all domestic systems.
Mali-US: For the record. US Africa Command announced that on 20 April three US soldiers and three civilians died in an automobile crash in Bamako. One was from the Army's intelligence and security command and two were from special forces – Special Operations Command. The civilians were not identified, but almost certainly were clandestine agents.
Comment: This announcement is the first US admission since the government overthrow that US military and government civilians are present and active in Mali. The US has sent military and apparently civilian intelligence personnel to assist and improve the counter-terrorism capabilities of several Sahelian African states, including Mali.
Some people in Mali will interpret this announcement as confirming early news service accusations that US military personnel encouraged the US-trained Mali Army captain to overthrow his government.
Phi Beta Iota: People don't die in car crashes in Mali — especially six at a time. Dover AFB has been getting body bags from all over the world for some time now. We have to say this: the only thing stupider than CIA doing a “Khost Kathy” all over the place is DIA trying to get into the spy business. CIA has been living immunity and a lack of accountability to include ignoring all DoD requirements for anything outside any capital city. CIA is not a spy service. It is a bureaucracy that begs at two tables: the foreign liaison table and the US legal traveler table. It has survived (kept the myth alive) on foreign liaison hand-outs and the use of secrecy to conceal gross ineptitude. DIA spying–apart from being totally unnecessary–must by definition get into the provinces. There are four solutions, but no one at DIA or INSCOM (or CIA for that matter–CIA has no bench) has the depth of understanding and experience to get it right, so General Flynn is going to blow his entire tenure dealing with kindergarten kids playing dress-up. Here are the four solutions:
Scott Camil, a veteran of the second-longest U.S. war in history, that on Vietnam, radically changed a discussion of the longest war in U.S. history, that on Afghanistan, on CNN on Sunday.
CNN's Don Lemon tried repeatedly to explain troops posing with body parts as an inscrutable result of war, without questioning the justification of that war. Repeatedly, Lemon instructed viewers not to judge soldiers.
A guest to whom Lemon devoted a great deal of time, Dr. Terry Lyles, followed Lemon's leads and was praised by Lemon as the best guest he'd heard from on the topic. Lyles suggested the problem was one of public relations: “We need to do a better job,” he said, “you know, with them psychologically to help them understand that the world is watching. Be careful about what you do and what you capture while what you're doing every day is very difficult.”
Scott Camil took a different tack, saying: “Well no we don't know what it's like to be in combat unless you've been in combat, but I think the real question is: you're nit picking when you're talking about things like people posing with bodies. The real question should be why are we at war in the first place? Why are we killing so many people in the first place? The concern over posing with someone that's dead, it seems to me the fact that that person is dead and that we're killing people is more important than what happens after they're dead.”
Camil's comment was so effective that the next panelist to speak shifted to his topic. Holly Hughes remarked: “Scott hit the nail on the head because now we've opened a dialogue. What are we talking about now? Shouldn't we be more upset that we're out there killing people? . . . Maybe we need to assess why we're there in the first place.”
Camil continued: “What I understand is what it's like to be in a war zone and I understand the behavior in a war zone. And I would say that, first of all, that war is really an institution made up of criminal behavior. When we as civilians want to solve our problems, we're not allowed to murder people and burn their houses down. I don't see why war is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. And furthermore, the majority of people that die are innocent civilians.”
Some fundamental truths are rarely spoken on television.
Scott Camil was honorably discharged with 13 medals including 2 purple hearts following 20 months voluntarily spent as a Marine in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971, and was a founding member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Inc. He is an active member of Veterans For Peace and serves as the President of Chapter 014 in Gainesville, Florida.
Veterans for Peace was founded in 1985 and has approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every U.S. state and several countries. It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans' organization calling for the abolishment of war.
About the author: James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine.
He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. His website: Wall Writings.
EXTRACT:
I propose no firm historical linkage between slavery and Occupation, but I do propose a linkage between the demand for action called for by John Newton against slavery, and the passage of a divestment resolution by United Methodist General Conference delegates as a 21st century demand for the UMC to halt its financial support of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people.
It is well past time to “throw this dirty, filthy Occupation out of United Methodist waters”.
Phi Beta Iota: The continuing economic and political crisis in the USA, one that may escalate to a civil war as well as a national crime wave in 2013, has limited US public outrage against Israel. However, there are many weak signals that the tide has turned — not only are Americans outraged the role played by Goldman Sachs and the Jewish Chairmen of the Federal Reserve in the destruction of the global and the US domestic economies, but also at the role played by Jewish money and Israeli dominatrix methods in US politics. We see the day coming when Israel is treated to financial sanctions much as South Africa was. The Israeli government is to the Palestinians as the white South African government was to the people of color in South Africa. Justice will have its day in Palestine; we pray this be so.
