Showing posts with label Expropriate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expropriate. Show all posts

June 21, 2017

Diversity Necessitates Respect

So this was an interesting photo taken of a sticker hung in front/near the Capitol reflecting pool in Washington, D.C. 

It is one of the faces of the resistance, and while it's not Linda Sarsour, it reminds me of her--she is the one who garnered wide attention at the 2017 Women's March not long ago. 

Remember her rant of "Sisters and Brothers!"--whose sister is she anyway?

With her polarizing politics, support for Sharia Law and anti-Zionist rants and support for the BDS movement, she certainly is not mine. 

Note: An Israeli official even came out yesterday with like concerns about her. 

Here are some of Sarsour's alleged sayings about Sharia Law--or is this more of a complete embrace? 




While I greatly believe in diversity and strongly adhere to valuing and respecting all good people out there... 

There is something that feels wrong here. 

Generic images like the top photo with the traditional Muslim hair covering--again, I respect this.

It is overlaid with the American Flag--again nothing wrong with that--Jews wear yarmulkes with the flag too.

But look further now...underneath it states: 
"We The People  
are greater than fear"

Hmm...We the people--who is the "we" here?

Is this a group photo of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, etc.--so where is the inclusivity?

With Sarsour's insertion of a Sharia ideology into American politics, perhaps, there is a subtle--or not so subtle--attack on our greater American freedom and democracy going on here.

Sharia law is being spread around the globe by:

- Decree (think of the Mullahs in Iran)

- Terror (think ISIS and Al-Qaeda)

- Sympathy (think of the Palestinians)

- Mass immigration (think of the changing cultural face of Europe), and 

- Expropriating other people's causes (such as Democracy and freedom and so called justice with Linda Sarsour).

Everyone is entitled to their peaceful beliefs, especially when there is a ethos of  mutual respect and a truthful recognition and acceptance for everyone of "Live and let live!"

But when the bounds are trampled by those who want to see only "their way or the highway"...then we need to seriously fear--who are "We the people"--and what do they really want? ;-)

(Source top Photo: Andy Blumenthal and memes from Internet search)
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December 9, 2011

Losing The Edge, No More

For years, there has been all sorts of uproar about the U.S. and its citizens and businesses losing their edge.

From critics who point out to how our educational system (especially through high school) is not keeping up, how we are not attracting and graduating enough folks in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), how our inventions are freely copied overseas, and how innovation and entrepreneurship is suffering at home whether due to challenging economic or social conditions.

Yet, when it comes to losing our edge, nothing is more maddening than when the technological advances we do have are taken from us--this happens in numerous ways, including:

- Cyber Attacks: According to the Pentagon Strategy on Cyberwar as per the Wall Street Journal (15 July 2011) "each year a volume of intellectual property the size of the Library of Congress is stolen from U.S. government and private-sector networks." Cyber espionage has affected a broad range of our prized national assets: from Space Shuttle designs to the Joint U.S. Defense Strategy with South Korea as del as the plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and more. Moreover and unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, this past August, McAfee disclosed a cyber spying operation dubbed Operation Shady Rat that infiltrated some 71 government and corporate entities of which 49 were in the U.S. and which included more than a dozen defense firms over five years, compromising a massive amount of information.

- Spies/Insider Threats: Spies and insider threats can turn over state secrets to foreign powers or entities causing a major lose to our competitive advantage. This has happened with convicted spies from Aldrich Ames to FBI agent Robert Hanssen, and more recently to Army Corporal Bradley Manning accused of turning over troves of restricted documents to WikLleaks. And despite the amazing efforts to catch these subversives, presumably, there are plenty more where they came from.

- Expropriations: We lose our edge to foreign nations and organizations when our high-technology or intellectual assets are used without our consent or otherwise seized and compromised. This can happen from having our copyrights trampled on, our designs simply copied and "knockoffs" produced and peddled, or even when we are in a sense forced to exchange our intellectual property for basic entry into foreign markets. But this also happens more explicitly and violently when our assets are literally taken from us. For example this happened in April 2001, when Chinese fighter jets intercepted (in international air space) and crashed a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane and didn't return it until July in disassembled pieces. Similarly, when the tail of the stealth modified MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, with sensitive military technology, used in the raid in Osama bin Laden's was recovered and held by Pakistan for weeks before it was returned to the U.S. And we saw this again this week when the Iranians showed off a prized RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone they now have seized, and which secrets presumably may end up in Russian, Chinese, or ultimately terrorist hands.

Developing an edge is not something we should take lightly or for granted--It is based on lots of talent, experience, and hard work and we do not have an exclusive hold on any of these.

We must prize our scientific and technological advances and secure these the way a mother protects it's young--fiercely and without compromise.

No matter how much or fast we churn out the advances, it will not matter if we do not safeguard our investments from those who would take it right out from under us. We can do this by significantly increasing investment in cyber security, strengthening counterespionage efforts, and not letting any nation or organization take something that doesn't belong to them without consequences--economic or military--that restore our edge and then some.

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