Update no.660

Update from the Heartland

No.660

4.8.14 – 10.8.14

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

The following article is nearly 15 years old and was recently sent to me by a friend and frequent contributor to this humble forum.

“The Intelligence Gap – How the digital age left our spies out in the cold.”

by Seymour M. Hersh

The New Yorker

Published: December 6, 1999

http://cryptome.org/nsa-hersh.htm

It was suggested the article’s premise and title hypothesis remain valid today.  I have not and do not subscribe to The New Yorker, so I must rely upon others to illuminate opinions, as in this case.  In a broad, general sense, I do not disagree with Hersh’s opinion.  The United States has had more than a few failures in just my lifetime.  However, I will quibble with the implications of Hersh’s opinion as well as incorrectly stated facts really irritate me.  Hersh believed the National Security Agency (NSA), this Grand Republic’s signals intelligence organization, failed to alert the U.S. Government of nuclear tests conducted by India in May 1998.  First, India detonated its first nuclear device on 18.May.1974; the testing to which Hersh refers was actually the second round of underground tests carried out by India.  More importantly, Hersh lays the blame for this clear intelligence failure squarely upon the NSA.  I will argue that to do so demonstrates a profound paucity of knowledge with respect to the history, capabilities and operations of the United States Intelligence Community (IC).

            I have often pointed my accusatory finger at the Church Committee and President Carter for signing into law the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA): [PL 95-511; 92 Stat. 1783; 25.10.1978]; it is the obvious source of our intelligence limitations.  However, even this simple point is far too simple.  There are many other previous, less obvious, progenitor culprits for our scorn regarding intelligence failures.  To offer a couple of examples, I will illuminate an opinion and action by then Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson, who in 1929, on his assumption of office, when he learned of the Cipher Bureau (a joint Army-State signals intelligence unit, also euphemistically referred to as the Black Chamber), he proclaimed, “Gentlemen do not read each other's mail.”  Stimson immediately zeroed the State Department’s funding contribution.  The War Department chose not to carry the funding alone.  The Cipher Bureau ceased operations.  [NOTE: Stimson changed his opinion of signals intelligence when he became Secretary of War in 1940.]  Further, even a cursory examination of the monumental, bureaucratic obstacles and myopic political in-fighting involved in the formation of the Coordinator of Information (COI) [1941] and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) [1942] will present yet another likely source for our failings.  My point with this little trip down memory lane is, the contemporary failures of U.S. intelligence are far larger, pervasive and endemic than one segment of the IC, or even one administration.

            At the bottom line, Stimson’s 1929 opinion is laudable in a society of respect, peace and order; the definition of ethical conduct remains clear, simple and easily understood in a respectful society.  However, as Stimson recognized in 1940, evil men intent upon destruction, oppression and subjugation present an entirely different environment and conditions.  Electronic intelligence and technical means are a long way from the mind and thought processes of evil men.  Until that time comes, Human Intelligence (HumInt) is the only way to obtain vital intelligence to alert the President (and perhaps the public) to significant events like the 1998 Indian nuclear tests.  The United States has rarely been at the forefront of HumInt operations.  I could also argue the world’s preeminent HumInt organizations – Britain’s MI-6 & MI-5, Russia’s Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), France’s Direction Générale de Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), or Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) – have their share of intelligence failures as well. 

            Now, with all that said and as I mentioned at the outset, I do agree with Hersh’s general opinion; the NSA has not kept up with the very rapid evolution of cyberspace and the digital world.  While the leadership of the NSA, CIA, et al, bear responsibility and accountability for weaknesses in their respective organizations, I will argue that the ultimate responsibility and accountability rests with the President and Congress, if not We, the People.  After all, it is our sense of moral outrage at the ugliness of HumInt in a world filled with a few, evil, bad men that imposes the shackles, constraints and bindings upon the IC, which in turn create significant gaps in the capabilities and performance of our Intelligence Community.

A request for my opinion:

“As a pilot, I am interested in your take on this...question of Air-Air missile or MG fire brining down the plane.

“Interesting, click on the large picture of the cockpit wreckage... I was dismissive of the thought of fire by a fighter, but when you look close up, it could be.  What appear to be round holes about the size of a 30mm are in the wreckage of the cockpit area.

“The analysis by the German pilot makes sense.  However, I haven't ruled out a proximity-fused SAM hit.- would like to see more forensics.”

Here is the article & URL:

“Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17”

by Peter Haisenko

anderweltonline.com

Published: July 30, 2014

http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/

My opinion:

            The air-to-air shoot down hypothesis, first presented by the Russians, has been around for a while.  The image in Haisenko’s Blog is a new one for me.  I have seen other “penetration” images, but that one is good.  A few thoughts . . .

            With all these “unofficial” images, the primary issue is the chain of custody, so to speak – the linkage to the aircraft via part number, serial numbers, material properties, tampering, et cetera.  From the image, I cannot establish that critical connection.  That said . . .

            The image shows clear evidence of penetrations . . . not particularly high energy, appear to be comparatively large size, with impacts at an oblique angle.  The window edge appears to be typical of cockpit windscreen exterior installations; however, I cannot identify where this piece would be located.  The experts can and probably will perform trajectory analysis on the penetrations to determine the relative source coordinates; that vector analysis will likely answer the question regarding root cause.

            What is not apparent in the image is evidence of explosive impacts that would be indicative of cannon fire – most aerial cannons at 20mm or larger use explosive warheads.

            If the assembly in the image is at it appears, I’d still say a large surface-to-air missile was the likely root cause.  I do not see the evidence of a 30mm aerial cannon as Haisenko suggests.  I also do not agree that the Russian “radar data” is definitive or even applicable; again, the experts should be able to make quick work of that stuff.

            I also do not agree with his exclusion of the Su-25.  The Su-25 is more than capable of bringing down a B777 in cruise flight at FL330.  So far, I do not see the evidence of typical air-to-air weapon damage.  Thus, I do not concur with Haisenko’s conclusion: “But that this remains pure speculation. The shelling of the cockpit of air Malaysia MH 017, however, is definitely not.”

Copyright law is an absolutely critical protection for creative folks who generate original material like music, movies, books and in a recent Supreme Court case broadcast television programming – American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo, Inc. [573 U.S. ___ (2014); no. 13–461].  The American Broadcasting Companies, Incorporated, claimed their performance copyrights were infringed by Aereo, Incorporated (formerly known as Bamboom Labs, Inc.) when the latter provided specific electronic equipment to allow subscribers to capture, watch and record selected broadcast programming.  Associate Justice Breyer wrote for the 6-3 majority and the Court, “Congress made . . . changes to achieve a similar end: to bring the activities of cable systems within the scope of the Copyright Act” [PL 94-553; 90 Stat. 2541; 19.10.1976].  Breyer went on to conclude, “Aereo ‘perform[s]’ petitioners’ copyrighted works ‘publicly,’ as those terms are defined by the Transmit Clause” [§ 101, 90 Stat. 2541, 2543].  The dissenting opinion written by Antonin the Impaler contended the majority inappropriately extended the definitions established by Congress.  He made a cogent and compelling argument, although not sufficient to convince me his view of the law was correct.  Nonetheless, it is important to illuminate one of Scalia’s observations.  “[The Supreme Court] came within one vote of declaring the VCR contraband 30 years ago in {Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. [464 U. S. 417 (1984)]}.  Now, that is a sobering and stark reality as well as an exclamatory punctuation on this issue.

            What the Court does not say: the law, as passed by Congress, has not kept pace with technological advancement and the entrepreneurial application of those technologies.  The explosive expansion of technical means of communication, transmittal, sharing and such have threatened copyright law for decades, and the pace of change appears to be accelerating.  While the Supremes in the Aereo case stood with the original creators, Scalia’s challenge to Congress remains precisely valid and appropriate; yet, the challenge does not rest with Congress alone.

            Television programming began a half century ago with three companies in competition for the viewer’s attention with income for their creative works coming from advertisers.  Performances could not be recorded without very expensive and large equipment far beyond the public capacity.  The same limitation was true for music, books and such.  Now, original works can be recorded, stored, repeatedly viewed, shared with others, and even easily sold without compensation to the originator.  Such capacity is pervasive in society.  The television broadcast networks are struggling with their business paradigm and protecting their creative work.  The Aereo decision is a stopgap action at the very best and certainly not the definitive legal judgment.

            As one of those miniscule individual citizens who is creating original material, I urge Congress to update the applicable laws, and more importantly, I strongly recommend every citizen be mindful of copyright law and protect the rights of the creators.  We all appreciate and seek free stuff, but doing so often penalizes the creators and ultimately stifles creative works.  ‘Nuf said!

News from the economic front:

-- The Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said the bankruptcy plans submitted by 11 of the nation's biggest banks make “unrealistic or inadequately supported” assumptions and “fail to make, or even to identify, the kinds of changes in firm structure and practices that would be necessary to enhance the prospects for” an orderly failure.  The sweeping rebuke to the big banks is just the latest move in the continuing federal action to dissipate the economic impact of the too-big-to-fail banks that contributed to the 2008 banking collapse and led to the Great Recession.  The banks must show “significant” progress by July 2015, toward acceptable procedures for an orderly bankruptcy without causing broad, damaging economic repercussions.  The Federales raised the specter of slapping banks with tougher capital, leverage and other rules as well as forcibly breaking them up, if significant progress is not made in addressing shortcomings.

-- The European Central Bank governing council kept its main refinancing rate at 0.15% and continuing to charge 0.1% on a portion of banks’ reserves parked in its coffers for the second month in a row.

Comments and contributions from Update no.659:

Comment to the Blog:

“I propose a simpler reason China might defend Russia's position re Ukraine. Perhaps they would rather Putin expanded to his west rather than attack China or its near neighbors. I continue to see an assumption on all sides that the shoot-down was deliberate. I find that hard to believe.

“I would like to see John Brennan fired or retired for his actions in hacking Senate information. While I'm not a Feinstein fan, let us remember that the CIA is supposed to serve the government, not the other way around. In order to appropriately manage the spy community, the highest levels of government must necessarily know what they have done.

“I rather like your linked article from Geopolitical Weekly, ‘Gaming Israel and Palestine.’ Mr. Friedman disregards the human cost of all this bloodshed, but then so do all the players. His assessment of the balance issue is spot on, although I find him a little optimistic with his hope for a peaceful resolution in fifty years. Each side wants its ethnic/religious group to triumph over the other and will fight to the death for that goal. Both sides, in that way, resemble Nazi Germany. Short-sighted people have carried on the underlying conflict for millennia, and I believe they will continue until one side exterminates everyone on the other side who is able to pick up arms. Maybe everyone. Neither Mr. Friedman nor I see a reason to debate the details of the latest incident. The important debate for the U.S. is why we continue to put our wealth into this conflict.

“The seeds of the dimwitted lawsuit against the President of the United States were planted on Election Night of his first term. If you re-read the statements of the Republicans from that night and the next day, you will understand that they oppose Obama personally to the exclusion of all else, including the good of the nation.

“The economy continues to improve on paper. I would like to bring up an issue that receives little discussion. One can easily find evidence that many of the unemployed served in jobs that were not sent overseas or anywhere else but were permanently eliminated by automation or other technology. Does anyone believe that the debatable growth in the economy will replace those jobs with others for which the unemployed might be trained?”

My response to the Blog:

Calvin,

            I cannot see any impact regarding your switch in word processing systems.

            Re: PRC.  Valid point . . . although Russia has shown comparatively little interest in the East, perhaps because they have far more land buffer than they have to the west.

            Re: Brennan.  I am not quite sure why you are down on Brennan beyond he is the DCI left holding the bag?  The disagreement between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers occurred well before Brennan’s tenure.  He did the proper thing it seems to me.  What those Senate staffers did was quite wrong and should have been prosecuted; however, what some folks in the CIA did as a consequence was far more wrong on multiple levels. 

            Re: Palestine.  The crusades ended after 150 years.  The perpetual war between France and England ended after 500 years.  We could argue Islam has been at war with anyone who does not believe as they believe since its creation in 632 AD.  The genesis of the latest violence is caught up in the tangle of propaganda.  The solution must exceed these damnable flare-ups.  To my thinking, the solution rests in a Palestinian State.

            Re: “The important debate for the US is why we continue to put our wealth into this conflict.”  The support of the United States for a Jewish homeland has been strong since 1922.  As long as the IRI, Hamas, Hezbollah, et al, profess their objective as the annihilation of Israel, I cannot see U.S. policy changing. 

            Re: House lawsuit.  Agreed.  I see the H. Res. 676 action as pure political theater for the pending election with little prospect to even reach judgment, set aside success.

            Re: “Does anyone believe that the debatable growth in the economy will replace those jobs with others for which the unemployed might be trained?”  My simple answer: yes.  I think the more germane question is, who is willing to be re-trained?  And, who will pay for the training?  The individual unemployed person clearly cannot.  So, the choices are narrowed to corporations, the State, or some combination thereof.  I am also concerned about the will of some unemployed or underemployed to seek another profession.

  “That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”

Cheers,

Cap

Round two:

“I will admit to seeing Brennan as a handy target. The reality is that given the nature of the spy services, tracking down the actual decision makers and perpetrators and actually bringing them real consequences will not be possible. By getting rid of Brennan we can at least give his successors reason to be cautious.

“Re Palestine: This began before either Judaism or Islam came into existence. Historians can document conflict back to the time the Canaanites returned from Egypt to find "their" land occupied by others. One explanation I saw somewhere for this sticks in my mind. The land east of the Mediterranean is not rich enough to support everyone but is rich enough that people are willing to fight over it. That makes sense to me. Giving Israel what it said it wanted (a country of its own) has not produced peace in the region at all after roughly 65 years. If we insist on meddling in that region, we must change our strategy.

“I think I need to distinguish between growth in ‘the economy’ versus growth in jobs. One measure of the economy is productivity, but productivity has grown enormously without parallel growth in jobs because of a variety of technology changes. If manufacturers can produce the same amount of products (or more) with less labor, the economy appears to grow even while jobs are lost. The whole premise of using updated technology, in most cases, is to reduce the use of labor. That happens across all sectors, too, in services and extractive sectors as well as manufacturing. Productivity has risen greatly in office work (think computers versus typewriters), mining, farming, and even restaurants. That is the result of automation, not rises in employment. Indeed farming and mining employment has dropped further than manufacturing. What sector or type of employment do you see increasing enough to balance those out?”

 . . . my response to round two:

Calvin,

            Re: Brennan.  OK, if we can dismiss Brennan, then we must fire Feinstein as well.  She was more directly involved in the data breach than Brennan.  While the message needs to be clear, the CIA cannot violate the law, the same message must be sent to Congress.

            Re: Palestine.  Using that logic, we can go back 65M years when pre-homonids banded together in tribes.  History is history and cannot be changed.  Thus, as you say, the policy or strategy must change.  To my current thinking that paradigm shift is the United States standing with the majority of the international community as it did in 1947, to approve and clear the State of Palestine on the West Bank.  The Palestinians deserve the same respect as the Jews did after World War II.

            Re: jobs.  Great Britain had to make the difficult transition from the labor dependent manufacturing of the Industrial Revolution to predominately a service-oriented economy.  You ask: “What sector or type of employment do you see increasing enough to balance those out?”  IMHO, we must make the same transition.  Machines will continue to replace human labor for a host of reasons.  Thus, technology service jobs are clearly that growth sector.  Think about our automobiles.  I used to do all routine maintenance on my first automobile.  Today, virtually everything in the cars today are managed by computers and required technical expertise and equipment to maintain them – beyond my capacity.  Health care is another sector of perpetual growth . . . at least until we produce intelligent automatons to replace human nurses and doctors. 

            Just a related FYI: the jobs discussion reminds me I really need to get started on writing the 3^rd book of my Anod series . . . she returns to Earth where she learns of human evolution on the Homeplanet.

Round three:

“Feinstein was at least attempting to exercise authority over the CIA. The CIA has no such argument. They are at the agency level of government; the Senate is the highest level of our government. One thing that must happen to get the USA back on track is that someone must succeed in limiting the spy community.

“My point was and is that Palestine has been an impossible place to keep the peace as far back as records go, unlike much of the globe. We waste our own resources trying to keep them from killing one another. If we grant the Palestinians a state within easy air attack of Israel, then Israel has a reason to continue the conflict. If we do not, the Palestinians have a reason to continue the conflict. We cannot bring peace to this region.

“Technology service jobs are a growth sector for the present, but not on a scale to replace the manufacturing jobs they eliminate. This does not compare to the Industrial Revolution, which created more jobs in manufacturing than it eliminated in agriculture. The technology is created for the purpose of removing jobs from the process, and it succeeds in that. The medical sector will grow until the Baby Boomers (that's us!) move through our life cycles. Succeeding generations have not continued the population growth that brought about so many changes designed to accommodate us. By arithmetic, the demand for medical people will drop even if technology does not replace people in that sector.”

 . . . my response to round three:

            Re: CIA v. Senate.  The CIA is an agency of the Executive Branch.  It is not subservient to the Legislative Branch.  Staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee do NOT have some unbounded authority to access, copy or take documents at will.  Yes, Congress has a responsibility to monitor and oversee Executive Branch agencies, but there are rules and procedures to be followed on both sides.  This separation of powers confrontation began in 2001, when the Bush 43 administration authorized the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) [416] in the prosecution of the War on Islamic Fascism.  We have discussed this issue repeatedly.  We have even reviewed a number of memoranda generated by the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel [548] regarding the legal basis for the employment of EIT in the performance of the President’s authority to wage war successfully.  DCI Brennan publicly apologized for the actions of CIA agents.  Now, I want to see an apology from Senator Feinstein for the failure of her staffers to play by the rules.  Congress is not a unilateral authority.

            Re: Palestine.  Part of the problem in the Palestinian situation hangs upon the legal basis for the area.  UN General Assembly Resolution 181 partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine [1947] into Jewish and Arab areas.  The British withdrew [1948].  Israel established governance over their areas.  Neighboring Arab states repeatedly attacked Israel, most significantly the Six Day War [1967] when Israel gained control of the whole region.  Over the years, the Israelis have authorized autonomous regions for the Palestinian Authority.  Unfortunately, the Palestinians will not gain the necessary recognition short of statehood.  The situation has progressed on the West Bank as the Palestinians finally began to effect governance over their areas.  However, the seizure of control by Hamas in Gaza has created an unacceptable position for Israel, for reasons we have just witnessed.  It is this basis by which I advocate for statehood for Palestine at least in the West Bank, to establish the legal basis for the Palestinian people and to further isolate Hamas. 

            Re: jobs.  We are trying to predict the future.  I have offered my opinion.  To return to labor-intensive manufacturing is not reasonable in my humble opinion.  Creating more labor-intensive jobs appears to be a non-starter.  We can also discuss population growth control.  The process of transition from labor-intensive manufacturing to service-oriented has been underway for some time and we have a long way to go.

  “That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”

Cheers,

Cap

Round four:

“The CIA is an agency of the Executive Branch, not the guiding authority of the Executive Branch. That is an important distinction and one that tends to be ignored by the spy community. The point remains that the CIA and other spy agencies need to be under control of a higher authority, and the Executive Branch shows no sign of reining them in under either Republican or Democrat Presidents. As far as those Justice Department legal opinions, they carry a certain weight by virtue of their source but few reputable attorneys believe they are a final word on any given subject. And no, at this period in history the Justice Department is not necessarily reputable. Think Alberto Gonzales. Eric Holder has his own failings, as you know.

“Peace or war in the Middle East has never been simply a legal issue. If we set up a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Israel will continue to feel threatened by its proximity. They will have historical justification for that. If we do not set up such a state, the Palestinians will continue to claim oppression by Israel, also with historical justification. No solution to this paradox is in sight. Legal issues abound, but they are the trees that hide the forest.

“We will not return to a manufacturing economy as far as jobs are concerned, and jobs will decline in the parts of the world to which they have been exported as the relative cost of technology declines. I do not support any attempt to go backward. However, I believe that society must adapt to being unable to provide jobs for all who want to work. Population growth is already under control in the developed world and in China, and is a factor in higher average population ages especially in Japan. I researched that one a couple of years ago in college. However, that does not address actual decline in the number of jobs. I hope European nations or Japan will find a constructive way to address this. The U.S. has fallen so far behind in social progress that we are not a likely candidate.”

 . . . my response to round four:

            Re: CIA.  Agreed, the CIA is not an extra-governmental agency.  Likewise, Congress and the Executive do not have the authority to go rummaging through the other’s documents willy-nilly.  The proper path to settle disputes between the Legislative and Executive Branches is via the Judiciary; neither accessed that constitutional path, as yet.

            Re: Palestine.  My life experience tells me people are all the same all over the world; they want to live a peaceful life, to be respected, and for their children to grow up to have a better life than them.  Unfortunately, governments and religion create conflict and feed the violence for reasons quite akin to megalomania.  The Gaza Palestinian people would have a far better life if they lived in peace as a good neighbor to Israel.  Hamas is an obstacle to that peace, and as time goes on, Jewish right-wingers are growing in that regard.  That is why I think it is time for the United Nations and the international community to at least place the Palestinians on a comparable footing by recognizing the State of Palestine.

            Re: jobs.  Universal employment . . . interesting concept.  As with all things, the key is balance.   Intellectually, I would like every human being to be self-sufficient, live in peace, and be respected as they respect their neighbors.  Unfortunately, people procreate and often exceed the capacity of their land to sustain their lives.  Then, we feel compelled to intervene and disturb the natural course of things.  I understand, appreciate and broadly support the notion you present . . . well except for the U.S. has fallen part; however, there are very real and profound limits to the capacity of this Grand Republic and the European Union.  Procreation beyond the capacity of the land to sustain that local population is not healthy for anyone, including Americans and Europeans.  Add in rabid ideologies and we have a volatile and violent concoction.

  As always, “That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”

Cheers,

Cap

Round five:

“As far as Palestine, you are surely right that the ordinary people would prefer to live their lives, If one could find a typical Palestinian or Israeli family and bring them next door to one of us, chances are we would find them to be good neighbors. All the same, leadership can and does become entrenched and battle-hardened for generations. The other example that comes to mind is Northern Ireland. In very much the same mode, the Israel/Palestine area will not see peace until one side is finally and brutally defeated.

“I am not sure why you discuss the capacity of the land to support people in the context we have here. The U.S.A.'s population has given up catastrophic growth, as has much of the advanced world. That is a discussion for another thread.

“What I brought up is the capacity of society to support people by job creation in a situation where work is increasingly done by sophisticated machinery. The issue at hand is that people are replaced by machinery, which does their work cheaper and more precisely, without paid time off, burnout, or complaints about working conditions. That is irresistible to corporations, as it should be. It makes money for their owners. Society as a whole is left with great production capacity but with excess workers who cannot consume much and who are after all humans in trouble through no fault of their own. (The notion that poverty and other human ills are people's own choices is already refuted; see above.) How does a capitalist society deal with that when no sectors are creating a balancing number of jobs?”

 . . . my response to round five:

            Re: Palestine.  OMG, I truly hope it does not come to that . . . “brutally defeated.”  As I said earlier, this is quite like addiction.  The breakthrough might well come when both sides genuinely want peace at the same time.  When both reach their bottom at the same time, we might actually reach peace.  The other option as I suggested earlier, the United States should sponsor a revision to UN Resolution 181 to establish the State of Palestine on the West Bank, and concomitantly call for elections in Gaza supervised by the UN to determine whether the Gaza Palestinians want to retain Hamas and remain isolated, or abandon Hamas for the Palestinian Authority and the new government of Palestine.  The least we can do is put the Palestinians on an equal footing with Israel.  A new set of rules will come to play.

            Re: population.  My comment was not meant for the United States; we have been net agricultural exporters for many decades and that is not likely to change soon.  My point was meant more for 3rd world countries like Somalia, Sudan, Guatemala, Honduras, et cetera.

            Re: jobs & machines.  Spot on, which is why I say, someone needs to take care of the machines – technical experts.  My point is, workers must transition to the jobs that are needed.  Manual laborers are just not needed in as great of numbers as a century ago.  A single backhoe does the work of scores of ditch diggers, but someone must maintain the backhoe.  Balancing the number of jobs is neither the responsibility of corporations or even society.  Yes, government can and should offer a transition helping hand to stimulate company training or some such to assist the transition.  In recessions / depressions, governments can and should offer public employment for the public good; but, that must end.  Expanding government is not a stable state, IMHO.

Round six:

“On the Israeli/Palestinian issue, all I have left to say is ‘good luck.’ On occasion history does not repeat itself, but the rarity of that is why social progress is best measured on timelines measured in centuries.

“I will leave the less developed world alone for now in our discussion of jobs. Their progression resembles ours with later dates.

“There is an issue in your analogy of the backhoe replacing by-hand ditch diggers. What if it's not just blue-collar jobs? Let us say your backhoe is invented and an operator and a helper replace about ten ditch diggers. In the past, those eight people could go into factory work, learn to operate more backhoes, or in recent times go into information technology. The issue with all that is that the total number of jobs is shrinking. It's not just that the jobs are in different fields. There are no jobs.

“For a clearer example, consider amazon.com. Amazon provides far fewer people with work than a traditional store chain but sells around $75 billion in merchandise a year. This idles not just sales clerks but managers, store maintenance people, local and national advertising workers, and others on an international scale. Those eight ditch diggers are not going there for the next job. Similar cost savings via technological improvement abound. By-hand bookkeeping and secretarial work vanished in the 1980s and 1990s. Coal mining is automated and employs roughly 5,000 workers today compared to 50,000 a few decades back. The whole reason for using the technology is to eliminate jobs. Workers operating and maintaining the machines are far fewer than those they replace. Re-training is not an answer when there is no kind of work hiring. This will produce fundamental changes in society one way or another.”

 . . . my response to round six:

            Re: Palestine.  Indeed.  The status quo is just not stable.

            Re: jobs.  I’m not sure the total number is shrinking.  Nonetheless, let us assume the total number of jobs is shrinking.  My earlier point was, producing more unemployed is not helpful.  I suppose at this point we enter the realm of hypothetical and science fiction.  My image of Earth and human society five centuries hence; machines do the work; humans are maintained as a gene pool; procreation controlled by the State for a zero sum gain within a fixed environment.  That book is not written, yet, but I am thinking about the extension of the issue / question.

            Related: the publishing world is going through this exact transition now.  The traditional print publishers want to price eBooks at print prices to maintain their revenue stream even though the expense differential between print and electronic versions is large and significant.  Print publishers like brick & mortar bookstores, like ditch digging companies, are struggling with the transition from the physical to the virtual.  As you say, the change is inevitable; how we handle the changes is critical.

Round seven:

“The status quo in Palestine only appears unstable. The real, underlying status quo is unending conflict. In most armed conflicts one or both sides conclude that any peace is preferable to continued war. We have yet to see that between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“The rate of ‘normal’ unemployment seems to rise over time, from 3-4% when I took my first economics class in 1990 to 5% in the late 1990s to, by some economists, 7% now. This is not hypothetical. Five centuries hence is not the time frame to consider in a current-events blog if your hypothesis is beginning to happen now. The question for now is: if value is not produced by humans but by machines, what happens to the humans? If machines do all the work, capitalism fails the majority of the people.”

 . . . my response to round seven:

            Re: Palestine.  Conflict is by definition not stable.  Short of total defeat, e.g., Germany and Japan [1945], peace is only possible when both sides truly want peace . . . rather than peace on their terms.  If there is to be a negotiated peace, both sides must compromise and neither side will get everything they want.

            Re: man v. machine.  My hypothesis is science fiction, not a solution.  It is simply my imagination of what might evolve from this transition.  My imagining is a plausible outcome, but it is NOT a plan for an orderly process.  We clearly cannot abandon human beings.  We can and must solve the transition problem.

Round eight:

“You pinpointed the reason the conflict in Israel and Palestine is in fact stable. "If there is to be a negotiated peace, both sides must compromise and neither side will get everything they want." Not only have both sides been willing to compromise at the same time, but ordinarily neither side has the least interest in compromise.

“I share the belief that we must not abandon human beings in pursuit of profit. The problem is that capitalism does not allow for that.”

 . . . my response to round eight:

            Re: Palestine.  Then, we shall likely have aperiodic and persistent conflict in the region.  I wonder when the United States will reach its limit of tolerance?

            Capitalism is about free commerce and the profit motive.  It is not and never has been concerned about social welfare beyond ensuring a productive labor force.  Government has always held the responsibility for the safety, well being, and good order & discipline within the society it governs, i.e., the public good.  Supervising the transition from man to machine labor rests with government not corporations.

Another contribution:

“This op-ed from Haaretz, a leading Israeli daily, will tell you what the present Israeli govt feels about the two-state solution.  What a mess….”

“There'll be more Gazas without a two-state solution – The Gaza tragedies are the most acute symptoms of the despair resulting from the failure of the peace process, but Netanyahu doesn't learn the lesson of history - occupiers always lose in the end.”

by Stephen Robert

Haaretz

Published: Aug. 3, 2014 | 12:03 AM |  2

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.608673

 . . . my reply:

            Thx for the Haaretz article.

            The British, the United Nations, or the international community did not seek Palestinian Arab approval from the Balfour Declaration, to H.J.Res.73 [42 Stat. 1012], to UN General Assembly Resolution 181, for the partitioning of Palestine [Arab neighboring states voted against Resolution 181, but they had insufficient votes to reject it].  I think Israel knows there has to be a Palestinian State for there to be peace.  They have first hand proof in the conduct of the Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.  While there have been protests and such in the West Bank, to my knowledge, there have been no attacks or violence emanating from the Fatah area.  Frankly, I think the United States should initiate another General Assembly Resolution to declare and approve the State of Palestine in the West Bank.  I suspect when it was done, Hamas would find its support among the Gaza Palestinians evaporate in short order.  The two state solution is the only solution.  The status quo is not and never has been stable.  I have not seen a valid explanation why right-wing Israelis are so dead-set against a Palestinian State.

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)