The invention of the military-industrial complex

Once upon a time, the military had a limited role in society. Then came an invention that changed everything

Katherine C. Epstein//Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 

• http://www.salon.com/2014/01/26/the_invention_of_the_military_industrial_complex/

Topics: Military-industrial complex, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Military Technology, War, U.S. Military, Torpedo, News, Politics News

(Credit: Dja65 via Shutterstock/Salon)

Excerpted from "Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain"

Until the 1860s, the word torpedo did not mean what it means today. It referred to either floating bombs that would now be known as mines (such as those supposedly damned by Admiral David Farragut), or what are now called spar torpedoes (essentially a bomb attached to the end of a long pole projected from the bow of a warship). The modern torpedo, by contrast, is self-propelled and is therefore sometimes referred to as a fish or automobile torpedo.
Modern torpedoes trace their lineage back to the invention of a British engineer named Robert Whitehead. Born near Manchester, England, Whitehead emigrated to France in the 1840s to find work as a marine engineer. In 1847, he moved to Milan, then part of the Austrian Empire, but the following year of revolutions drove him to the Adriatic Coast, where he eventually settled in Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) and began building engines for the Austrian Navy. In 1864, a retired Austrian naval officer named Giovanni de Luppis brought him plans for a primitive wooden torpedo (called Der Küstenbrander, “the coastal fireship”). The design proved unworkable, but Whitehead was sufficiently intrigued with the idea of a torpedo to start from scratch. He produced a new prototype by 1866, powered by a unique two-cylinder engine of his own design and capable of making roughly 6 knots for 200 yards. The key breakthrough came in 1868, when Whitehead solved its erratic depth-keeping. The Austrian Navy, Whitehead’s patron, was delighted with the resulting improvements, but it could not afford to purchase the exclusive rights to the weapon.
Austria’s inability to purchase the exclusive rights to Whitehead’s torpedo opened the door for Britain. Both Whitehead and then-commander John Fisher (a future First Sea Lord) lobbied the Admiralty to try the device. It agreed, and trials were held in October 1870 with two torpedoes of different diameters. Overseen by a commission that included then-lieutenant A. K. Wilson (another future First Sea Lord), the trials were successful, and the Admiralty signed a nonexclusive contract to buy torpedoes from Whitehead’s Fiume factory in 1871. In 1872, the Royal Laboratory (subsequently the Royal Gun Factory) at Woolwich, which was controlled by the army rather than the navy, began building Whitehead torpedoes for the Royal Navy under license from Whitehead. In 1890, Whitehead established a second factory at Weymouth, on the south coast of England, to build torpedoes for his best customer. His original factory at Fiume continued to take orders from navies all over the world.
The United States was an exception. Instead of buying torpedoes from Whitehead, the US Navy attempted to develop a domestic counterpart in parallel. Its best hope was a torpedo known as the Howell torpedo, invented by a US naval officer named J. A. Howell. The Navy began to test it in 1870. In contrast to the Whitehead torpedo, which relied on compressed air, the Howell torpedo relied on the energy stored in a flywheel for propulsion. Aside from its propulsive effect, the flywheel also exerted a gyroscopic effect on the torpedo, improving its accuracy in the horizontal plane. While it experimented with the Howell torpedo, the US Navy flirted periodically with the Whitehead Company, but to no avail. Not until 1891 did it begin buying Whitehead torpedoes.

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By that point, Robert Whitehead had made several significant improvements to his design. In 1875, he replaced his original two-cylinder engine with a three-cylinder version designed by the British engineering firm of Peter Brotherhood. The original single screw gave way to contra-rotating propellers, and Whitehead introduced a steering engine to amplify the effect of the depth mechanism on the horizontal rudders. In 1889, Whitehead began to build 18-inch (diameter) torpedoes in addition to his standard 14-inch model. By the mid-1890s, his torpedoes could make almost 30 knots for roughly 800 yards. The application of an invention known as the Obry gyroscope (named after the inventor, Ludwig Obry) to torpedoes in 1896 supplied a horizontal guidance system and began their transformation into accurate, high-speed, long-range weapons. Several years before the outbreak of World War I, torpedoes could travel at a speed of 45 knots (51 miles per hour) or run 10,000 yards (5.6 miles). To put those numbers in perspective, Glenn Curtiss, the great American engineer, won the premier airplane racing event of 1909 by flying 47 miles per hour for 12.4 miles—and, of course, he did not have to contend with water resistance. Over a fifty-year period, the speed of torpedoes had increased by roughly 800 percent, and their range by 5,000 percent. They were at the cutting edge of technology.
While torpedo technology changed, so too did the platforms for launching them. Indeed, the half-century before World War I may have witnessed more technological change for navies than any period before or since. The basic outlines are well known. Through the Napoleonic Wars, naval vessels were powered by wind, were made of wood, and fired muzzle-loading smooth-bore cannons maneuvered on carriages. In the mid-nineteenth century, they began a rapid transformation. Propulsion changed from sails powered by wind to engines (first reciprocating, then turbine) powered by fossil fuels (first coal, then oil). Wooden hulls were clad with iron and then replaced entirely by steel, increasing their ability to withstand artillery hits. Muzzle-loading smooth-bore cannons on carriages gave way to rifled breech-loading cannon on mechanized mounts (first hydraulic, then electric), which could shoot farther, more accurately, and more quickly. The growing ability of warships both to endure and to deliver artillery hits involved a celebrated race between armor and armament. Perhaps less well known, yet just as important, were changes in communications and targeting technologies. Navies experimented extensively with telegraph cables and radio for controlling movement at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. The greater range and accuracy of modern guns were of little use if they could not be aimed and controlled, so navies also developed better targeting (also known as fire-control) systems, which were among the world’s first analog computers.

Although it is natural to think of capital ships exclusively in terms of heavy armor and big guns, they were the most important type of vessel in driving torpedo development before World War I. Even all-big-gun capital ships like the Dreadnought carried torpedoes. Whereas capital ships had to aim their big guns at individual enemy ships, they aimed their torpedoes at the entire enemy formation, expecting to sink a proportion. With such a large and inviting target for torpedoes as compared to big guns, the effective range of the former could exceed that of the latter. The race between guns and torpedoes to out-range each other, so that one fleet could fire at another without being hit in return, was at least as significant as the better known race between guns and armor. The prospect that torpedoes might win the race led tacticians to fear that they would replace guns as the primary armament of capital ships, and even the battleship aficionado Kaiser Wilhelm II plotted for a “torpedo battleship.”

In addition to capital ships, smaller vessels also carried torpedoes. Torpedo boats, which many navies began to build in the 1870s, were the first vessels designed to use torpedoes as their primary weapons system. A short-lived type of vessel known as the torpedo catcher (or the torpedo gunboat) was developed in the 1880s to defend fleets against torpedo boats, but it soon became clear that the catchers lacked the speed to catch their prey. The most durable type of vessel to emerge in direct response to torpedo development was the torpedo-boat destroyer, better known as simply the destroyer, which began to appear in the early 1890s. Originally intended to take on the defensive mission of the torpedo-boat catchers, destroyers soon showed offensive promise as torpedo boats themselves. Indeed, their greater size, durability, and sea-keeping ability made them better platforms for launching torpedoes than the torpedo boats had been. When firing torpedoes, destroyers used above-water, not submerged, tubes.
Perhaps surprisingly, submarines played little role in driving torpedo development before World War I. France led the way on submarines, introducing the first recognizably modern version in the early 1890s. It was followed by the United States and Great Britain around 1900. (Despite its later association with submarine warfare, Germany actually lagged in submarine development and likely had to rely on pirated French designs.) Prewar submarines had limited utility as torpedo platforms. They were not true submarines but submersibles, spending most of their time on the surface of the water and submerging only to attack a target. Most submarines lacked sufficient surface speed to accompany battle fleets (i.e., they were not fleet-keeping submarines), which moved above 20 knots by 1914, and instead were confined to coastal patrol. They expected to fire their torpedoes at point-blank range of hundreds rather than thousands of yards. Thus it was surface vessels, especially capital ships, and not submarines that drove the development of faster, more accurate, and longer-range torpedoes.

Like many other armaments, torpedoes were built and sold in a global marketplace, featuring (like so many of today’s markets) multinational corporations and transnational flows of capital, ideas, and technology. There were four international producers, who were distinct from those who built for just one country. The first, and most important, was the Whitehead factory in Fiume, which signed its first contract (with Austria-Hungary) in 1868 and its first international contract (with Britain) in 1871. It eventually sold torpedoes to twenty-three countries before World War I. The second was the Berliner Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft (BMAG). It was sometimes referred to as the Schwartzkopff Company after its founder, who most likely stole plans from Whitehead in 1873 and began producing a near-duplicate of his torpedo shortly thereafter. BMAG sold to Japan, China, Spain, Sweden, and Germany—until the mid-1880s, when the German Navy ceased to buy from BMAG and instead built all its torpedoes in state-owned factories. The third international producer was the Whitehead factory in Weymouth, England, which was originally established in 1890 to build solely for the British Navy but eventually sold on the open market. Finally, France’s Schneider Company (better known for its guns) began to sell torpedoes internationally, but very little about its torpedo business is known.
The international arms market had several distinctive characteristics. First, a number of armaments firms (like Whitehead) were multinational, with branches in more than one country. Some firms were subsidiaries of larger foreign conglomerates. In 1906, for instance, the great British armaments firms of Vickers and Armstrong-Whitworth purchased the Whitehead Company, including both its Fiume and Weymouth branches. Second, the line between public and private, and thus between state and nonstate actors, was blurry. Governments often operated quasi-private armaments factories to preserve security or stimulate competition, while private firms often received substantial investments from governments, making them quasi-public. Third, the armaments business usually required large upfront capital investments, and thus the number of producers within a given country was limited. Sometimes a single firm had a monopoly on a particular product (as with Krupp in German naval gun production), or a small number of firms had an oligopoly (as with Germaniawerft and Schichau in German torpedo-boat production). Finally, given the specialized nature of the goods being produced and the occasional ban on exporting, there was often just one consumer—the government—creating a so-called monopsony.

Under these conditions, producers faced several challenges. Not only did entering the armaments business require large capital investments, but so too did the constant plant upkeep to remain in the business. Demand was unreliable without a diversified consumer base. If a monopsonist government decided to stop purchasing, for whatever reason, demand collapsed. Government demand itself depended on unstable factors, like financial wherewithal and favorable tactical, strategic, and diplomatic circumstances. Monopsony empowered the consumer to set prices and specifications while depriving producers of leverage to protest. Producers often responded to their vulnerability by combining into rings or cartels.
Monopsonies notwithstanding, consumers faced difficulties as well. If the producers did not find many consumers, neither did the consumers find many producers. To stimulate competition—and thus, in theory, to obtain better products at lower prices—consumers had three basic options. One was to entice more private firms into the business. This task was not easy, despite the potentially lucrative rewards: for the reasons explained above, any intelligent firm would think twice about entering the armaments business. Overcoming firms’ reservations usually required both a cash subsidy (whether in the form of direct injections or payment of artificially high prices) to help firms acquire the necessary start-up capital, and the promise of contracts to assure firms that they would receive returns on their investments. If governments were unable or unwilling to make large financial outlays or to promise orders to private firms, they could adopt the second option for stimulating competition, which was to establish a government factory. The globe was dotted with such plants: the US Navy’s torpedo factory in Newport, Rhode Island; the Royal Navy’s torpedo factory in Greenock; the Japanese arsenal in Kure; the French gun plant at Ruelle; the Russian iron works at Putilov; and the Austrian shipyard at Pola. Of course, these plants also required large financial outlays.
The third option for stimulating competition was perhaps the one most fraught with potential pitfalls: to allow private firms to sell internationally. By doing so, governments effectively gave up their monopsony. The market was flooded not only with additional consumers but also with additional producers because the armaments firms now had to compete with producers in other countries for international customers. Governments could then reap the benefits of international competition in their own countries. Even in the absence of any imperative to stimulate competition, governments might allow firms to sell abroad in order to keep the firms in business at lower cost to themselves. In effect, allowing companies to court foreign buyers stabilized demand, meaning that their home governments did not have to inflate demand artificially through subsidies or unnecessary orders.

Despite such advantages, a significant drawback of this approach is easy to see: allowing armaments firms to sell abroad eroded secrecy. It was possible to minimize that risk by erecting various safeguards—for instance, by physically quarantining especially sensitive parts from the production of less sensitive ones, or by providing for damages if secrecy was breached— but it could not be eliminated. Thus, as we shall see in the following chapters, the global arms market offered benefits, but with costs.
Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex
Beginning with the introduction of the gyroscope in the mid-1890s, the growing accuracy, speed, and range of torpedoes posed grave challenges to conventional naval tactics. Traditional naval tactics called for capital ships sailing in close order and following visual signals from their leader to defeat their counterparts with heavy guns fired at point-blank range. Ships proceeding in close order and engaging at short ranges were extremely vulnerable, however, to torpedo fire. To deal with the torpedo threat, navies experimented with new formations, such as moving ships further apart in the line of battle or even breaking the line of battle into independent divisions, but the new formations created serious command-and-control problems. Navies also experimented with longer battle ranges to stay out of torpedo range, but the greater distances made it more difficult to achieve accurate gunfire. To cope with this challenge, navies sought to improve both their guns and their gunnery fire control. The result was a race for range between guns and torpedoes that raised the possibility that the entire system of tactics built around capital ships armed primarily with big guns would give way to one built around smaller vessels primarily armed with torpedoes.
The implications of torpedo development were equally profound at the strategic level. Traditional naval strategy, as elaborated in previous centuries by the Royal Navy, called for close blockade of enemies’ coasts to stifle their trade combined with decisive battle to destroy their fleets and achieve full command of the sea. Torpedoes threatened both aspects of this system. Expensive capital ships were so vulnerable to torpedo attack by cheaper vessels in battle that fleet actions could seem too risky. Ships engaged in close blockade were overly vulnerable to torpedo attack by surface torpedo vessels under cover of darkness or by submarines at any time. One option was to move the blockade farther from the enemy’s coast, but distant blockade (sometimes called loose blockade) was more difficult to enforce and was considered questionable under international law. By threatening to deprive navies of battle and blockade, torpedo development forced nations to look for fundamentally new ways of defining and applying naval power.

Thus, torpedoes played an important role in the intense naval competition preceding World War I. Navies everywhere poured enormous resources into increasing and conserving their relative power. In a classic example of a challenge-and-response dynamic, no sooner did one navy get a piece of technology than another navy invented a new piece of technology that rendered the former technology obsolete—and with it the massive peacetime investment needed to produce the technology on an adequate scale.
The depreciation of peacetime investment was particularly problematic for navies. Until recently, naval warfare was far more technologically sophisticated than land warfare and required correspondingly greater peacetime investment. “You can go round the corner and get more guns, more rifles, more horses, more men who can ride and shoot,” as Admiral Sir John Fisher once said, “but you can’t go round the corner and get more Destroyers and more Cruizers [sic] and more Battleships.” Lord Kitchener, Britain’s War Secretary for the first two years of World War I, confirmed Fisher’s claim: Equipping the British army, he claimed, “was not much more difficult than buying a straw hat at Harrods.” With so many resources sunk into naval power, representing such a high opportunity cost, the stakes were higher in the event of failure.
Industrialization exacerbated this dynamic, and torpedoes epitomized the process. Although a steamship is the more familiar symbol of industrialization at sea, a torpedo is at least as good a symbol: like steamships, torpedoes were metal and ran on engines, but torpedoes could be produced in much larger numbers because they were relatively small and inexpensive compared to ships. Even as the miniaturization of torpedoes enabled them to be produced in bulk, however, it posed serious design and production challenges. Consider these figures: in an 1882 contract for Whitehead torpedoes, the Austrian Navy required that the margin of error on an overall length of 4.415 meters not exceed 5 millimeters (0.005 meters), and that the margin of error on an overall diameter of 35.6 centimeters (0.356 meters) not exceed 2 micrometers (0.0002 meters). On that order, precision meant margins of error within four decimal places and 0.001–0.0006 percent of overall sizes. Miniaturization on that scale was not easy, and it was all the more difficult in view of the number of parts that had to be crammed into a torpedo. Consider some additional figures: whereas the standard small arm used by the US Army before World War I (the 1903 Springfield rifle) contained ninety parts, the standard torpedo used by the US Navy at roughly the same time contained about 500 parts—in the guidance systems alone.

Given the many small, precisely machined, and tightly fitted pieces of metal that composed torpedoes, sending a prototype into production without putting it through a rigorous research and development (R&D) process could easily create manufacturing, quality control, assembly, and operational nightmares. The small size and relatively cheap per-unit cost of torpedoes did not spare them from the need for an expensive R&D process. In fact, miniaturization and large-scale production made it all the more necessary.
In these respects, torpedoes likely represented a cluster of devices sometimes called control technologies, and they have attracted relatively little interest from scholars. Although historians of that problematic late-nineteenth-century phenomenon known as the Second Industrial Revolution have moved well beyond the classic focus on railroads, electricity, and chemistry, naval historians still tend to study big things, often created by big corporations: armor, guns, and propulsion. If taken too far, this focus crowds out equally important narratives about smaller technologies, built by smaller businesses, that made the big stuff smart—control technologies in communications, data collection, and information processing, which together formed the nervous system for the heavy exoskeleton of the industrial beast. In navies, control technologies included targeting and guidance systems (both of which relied on cutting-edge gyrostabilization) and radio, which had different manufacturing requirements and were built by different types of firms compared to armor, guns, and propulsion. Perhaps most important, these control technologies, like torpedoes, required miniaturization on a scale that many other industrial technologies did not. Although the exact mixture of engineering challenges posed by torpedoes was unique, more generally those challenges typified an important class of industrial technology that has been under-studied by historians.

Solving the challenges presented by industrial technology like torpedoes required a distinctive type of innovation, in which numerous activities occurred together rather than discretely or sequentially. Take basic science and applied science. Although the basic scientific principles at work behind industrial technology may not have been qualitatively more difficult than those behind preindustrial technology, they grew in quantity as the technology grew in sophistication. For instance, the science behind air flow in torpedo propulsion, which rested on the ideal gas law, was in some sense very simple, but applying it depended in part on the metal used for pipes and valves, which had their own chemical science of metallurgy. Discovering a particular scientific principle was easier than combining it with other relevant principles and applying the result in order to create effective technology. Given the difficulty of the latter, basic science sometimes lagged behind applied science (or science sometimes lagged behind technology), reversing an idealized path of scientific-technological progress. To return to the propulsion example, even if the ideal gas law and metallurgical chemistry were not perfectly understood, it could still be possible to build a propulsion system that worked well enough (bearing in mind that the phrase well enough itself constituted a dependent variable), and perhaps later to deduce the underlying science from the technology. Thus, it was possible to have technology-led science as well as science-led technology.
Similarly, invention, development, and production could occur at the same time, conducted by the same people in the same spaces. Contemporary actors struggled to define these activities, the boundaries of which could have legal and financial implications. Did invention consist of coming up with a good idea, or did it consist of embodying that idea in a workable design? Did development end when a torpedo entered production, or did it continue when the design was tweaked during the torpedo’s acceptance tests? Or was tweaking the design invention rather than development? Attempting to distinguish these activities from each other risks not only over-simplifying a complex historical reality but also obscuring the self-interest behind certain distinctions. When innovators seeking patents came up with a good idea but lacked the resources to turn it into a working prototype, it was in their interest to define their contribution as invention and to define others’ contributions as “mere” development. When innovators seeking monetary compensation turned a good idea into a working prototype, it was in their interest to define invention in terms of labor and risk rather than in terms of coming up with a good idea. These issues may reasonably be characterized as being among the ontological and epistemological implications of industrialization.

As if these supply-side problems were not formidable enough, the demand side presented its own challenges. (Of course, those on the demand side— navies—were also on the supply side, engaged in invention, development, and production themselves.) Although many of those demanding torpedoes understood that the weapon had the potential to revolutionize tactics and strategy, determining exactly how that potential would translate into reality was extremely difficult. Even the best guesses had to contend against institutional factionalization in both the American and British navies, and agreements about the desired performance characteristics of torpedoes were temporary. Thus, the specifications that producers had to meet were not only strict but changing. Volatility characterized both the consumption and production environment.
In their ideal world, navies had unlimited resources and could invest heavily in all aspects of innovation to mitigate this volatility. In the real world, navies’ resources were limited, and they had to make choices, all of which came with trade-offs. For instance, slowing production in favor of continued R&D risked having too few weapons in service when a crisis hit, while short-changing R&D in favor of production practically guaranteed more hiccups during the production process and problems with the weapons once they entered service. In the key sector of naval-industrial R&D infrastructure, Britain was far stronger than the United States, despite the traditional depiction of a declining Britain and a rising United States during this period. As a result, Britain was better able to perfect existing technology and test new technology thoroughly, while the United States had to take technological gambles. Precisely this pattern occurred with torpedo technology.
The effort to create an R&D infrastructure capable of developing successful torpedoes profoundly changed the relationship between state and society in the United States and Britain. The historian William McNeill associated this change with the emergence of command technology: technology commanded by the public sector from the private sector that was so sophisticated and expensive that neither possessed the resources to develop it alone. As a result, they had to collaborate, meaning that, while such technology was commanded in the sense that government fiat replaced the market, it was not commanded insofar as governments required the cooperation of the private sector. Indeed, far from the smooth hierarchy perhaps implied by the metaphor of command, this cooperation could be extremely messy, for reasons alluded to above: both parties had leverage, and it was impossible to distinguish neatly among the various activities (science, invention, development, and production) involved in their collaboration.

McNeill’s thesis had three major implications. First, command technology put a premium on the development of a kind of technology—which I will call servant technology—that could generate information needed to improve command technology. Second, the information generated by servant technology was itself a commodity because it had the power to affect market relationships by offering insight into the value of command technology. This commodified information was a distinctive kind of property. Third, the collaboration between the public and private sectors required to develop command technology raised fundamental and complex questions about the nature of property in relation to invention. When more than one party helped to invent a piece of technology, how could ownership of the intellectual property rights be established?
Answering this question generated serious friction between the public and private sectors. Conventional contract language, patent procedures, cost accounting methods, and pricing assumptions provided little guidance, because they were based not on the new collaborative procurement paradigm but on an older one, in which the public sector bought finished goods from the private sector as ordinary commercial products. In a series of legal battles over which side owned the intellectual property rights to technology that both had helped to invent, the governments won. To do so, they exploited two aggressive new legal strategies: applying eminent domain to intellectual property; and using anti-espionage legislation to control exports, that is, to regulate private commercial and proprietary rights—notwithstanding the fact that the legislation had been written for very different purposes. In every case, contractors protested that cutting them off from the global market would damage their property rights, but governments insisted that permitting private actors to share technological information freely would aid the governments’ enemies. Courts tended to lose sight of private property rights when national security seemed to be at stake.

Excerpted from “Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain,” by Katherine C. Epstein, published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Real 800 Pound Gorilla That Controls The Realm

by Michael Thomas
February 26th, 2014
Updated 02/26/2014

Storyleak EXCLUSIVE

The Government-Corporate Complex Takes Complete Control Of The USA

No one can deny the effects that the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) has had on the United States of America.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower aptly warned the world what would inevitably develop when any nation commits itself to a perpetual war economy. Or, maintains such a large military during peacetime.
However, very few understand that the MIC was only one component of a much larger complex now known as the Government-Corporate Complex.  Truly, it is the Government-Corporate Complex (GCC) which poses a much greater threat to world peace and social order, global financial security and economic stability, as well as the integrity of the biosphere and environmental protection.

Was the Military-Industrial Complex actually a red herring?
Studying the MIC as a microcosm of the GCC can be quite instructive and revealing about how the much bigger GCC entity operates throughout the world today. It it true that even in times of relative peace, the MIC does everything within its power to ensure it’s prosperity, just as the Department of Defense (read War) does everything to ensure its survival during periods without war.  In so doing, the MIC has been hard-wired from its very inception to guarantee the millions employed by the countless defense-related industries and services a paycheck, no matter what the prospects for war-making.  Which is one of the primary reasons why so much enthusiastic support for all things military has always reigned supreme in the political process of the USA.  And so it will for the foreseeable future. 

However, there is a much more profound reason about how and why the USA was destined to become the “Military Arm of the New World Order“.  The very notion of the Military-Industrial Complex was first publicized as both a diversion away from as well as an unwitting clue about the “real 800 pound gorilla” that has been clandestinely flexing its muscles across the planet for many decades, if not centuries.

“800 pound gorilla” is an American English expression for a person or organization so powerful that it can act without regard to the rights of others or the law. The phrase is rooted in a riddle:
“Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sit?”
The answer:
“Anywhere it wants to.”
This highlights the disparity of power between the “800 lb. gorilla” and everything else.
The term can describe a powerful geopolitical and military force, or, in business, a powerful corporate entity that has such a large majority percentage of whatever market they compete within that they can use that strength to crush would-be competitors.  (Source: Wikipedia)

When The Government Colludes With The Corporate Titans –> FASCISM
With the chartering of the very first corporations in the USA came the purposeful and inexorable development of the Government-Corporate Complex.  Today, the resulting fascist corporatocracy exerts its power in civil society throughout every sphere of life.  In matters of law and order, and war and peace, this “800 pound gorilla” acts with an impunity that rivals the imperialism of Rome*.
The ever-present fasces of the Roman Empire were paraded throughout the far reaches of the empire, wherever naked and brutal force was required to keep the newly conquered kingdoms and tribes in check. The very same “bound bundle of wooden rods with protruding axe-blade” sits right on the front wall behind the podium (two fasces on either side) in the main chamber of the US House of Representatives in the nation’s capital.

*The term fascismo is derived from the Latin word fasces.^[15] The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods that were tied around an axe,^[16] was an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate.^[17] They were carried by his lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command.^[18][19] The word fascismo also relates to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Just in case you can’t identify the two fasces on either side of the podium, here’s some assistance.

Doesn’t this beg the question as to why such a prominent symbol behind the speaker’s podium in the House Chamber is the same as that of Imperial Rome?
In case you can’t recognize the various elements in the fasces, each one has a quite imposing axehead protruding from the very top of the bundle of sticks.  The entire ax can be seen clearly in the photo below.

We don’t mean to belabor this subject, but the fasces does represent the manner in which the US Federal Government now imposes its will on its citizens at home, as well as on numerous conquered nations abroad.  In short the current and previous US Administrations have been viewed in the same light as those of the hegemonic British Empire, as well as the Imperial ‘Holy’ Roman Empire.
The Constitutional Republic of the USA, in fact, has deeps roots sunk into both of these centuries-old forms of governance, as we are all instructed as young students.  What is not taught, however, is the extent to which the actual power structure of the US Government mimics the most tyrannical aspects of Imperial Rome and despotic tendencies of the more recent British Empire.
This 800 Pound Gorilla Really Knows How To Swing An Axe
Perhaps it is now much easier to comprehend the quite formidable foe of the people which results when the government works in close tandem with the corporate sector.   Truly, these two entities do represent a fearsome tandem, especially when they combine forces in such a deliberate and coordinated manner. Who, or what, can possibly stop such a Goliath?  Who would dare when all the Davids (people like Edward Snowden) are literally “run out of town” … forever.
The government side of this modern-day Goliath is, of course, collectively represented by the POTUS, SCOTUS, CONGRESS, NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, Pentagon, etc.  As a conglomerate of various institutions, agencies and organs of government, the US Corporation does interpenetrate every major corporate entity in the USA.  The revolving door between all the major corporations and the government sector is well known and well documented.  With the beginning of each newly elected US administration, the number of CEOs and other corporate officers who are chosen to fill regulatory positions of the very industries they came from is quite shocking.  It has become expected that the “fox is now always guarding the hen house” throughout the Executive Branch of American Government.
Given the current state of affairs of campaign finance, lobbyists and their corporate overlords control the legislative process in way that is equally stunning.  That the healthcare lobbyists actually wrote the Affordable Care Act is the most egregious example of how the US Federal Government has been completely taken over.  Obamacare  represents the quintessential example of the Government-Corporate Complex at work.  As the most flawed piece of legislation in US history, Obamacare has consistently eluded those who know it must be repealed.  Even powerful senators and corporate titans who have demonstrated how it will bankrupt America are powerless to annul such a cost-prohibitive, overwhelmingly inefficient, and profoundly defective law.
Just as interlocking directorships ensure a very collegial and crony-like club among all the major corporations of the world, the governmental organs of the USA walk in lockstep with every other cooperative government around the world when circumstances necessitates, or the modern emperors dictate.  In virtually every case of transnational collaboration, it should be noted that it is the government’s business that is being conducted, not the people’s.
As an example, there have been numerous occasions where the US Government has worked hand-in-hand with the UK Monarchy, especially the British Crown, Parliament, MI5, MI6, Scotland Yard, etc., as well as with many of the other Western Powers (read NATO).  The highly protested Iraq War was a perfect example of one nation giving unlawful cover for another nation (UK provided cover for the US).  This ever-morphing international arrangement permits several of the most powerful nations to project their military power with little or no threat from the weaker nations or their leaders.
When looked at in the aggregate, it is as though the Government-Corporate Complex has taken the form an octopus wrapping itself around the entire globe.  It has, in fact, become a monolithic, amorphous superstructure of global power that answers to none one.  Although it’s true structure and organization can only be conjectured, a World Shadow Government surely exists that oversees the national governments of the world.  Even at that ultra-classified level of secrecy, the movement between high level government service and corporate leadership is a fact of life.
Because of the ever-revolving doors over may decades between public service and the corporate arena, these two major sectors of society have become not only inseparable, but also exceedingly aligned in both purpose and the execution of shared agendas.  This is where the real problems begins.  Especially to the extent that the Government-Corporate Complex interests are not properly aligned with those of the citizenry, does this problem have the potential to become greatly exacerbated and nettlesome for the governed.
In the case of those living in the USA in 2014 and beyond, it’s clear that the will of the people has never been so disrespected and scorned (taxation with virtually no representation), as the people themselves have been openly abused and victimized (think TSA body scans, Tasers without provocation, Childhood vaccination regimes, Chemtrail spraying everywhere, Smart meters without approval, Fluoride put into the water supplies, etc.)

Weapons of Choice of the Government-Corporate Complex

“Whereas Corporations use the impervious “Shield of Limited Liability” with great effect, it is their “Deep Coffers of Influence-Peddling” that allow them to serve their narrow and selfish interests with virtual impunity.  The Government, on the other hand, uses the “Threat of Criminal Prosecution“, “Predatory Taxation” and “Oppressive Laws” to keep the citizenry from straying from the reservation.”
~ State of the Nation

This convenient marriage between the government and the corporations has truly become the greatest bane of post-modern existence.  The viability of life on Earth is more at stake than ever because of how the biosphere is manipulated by those few who sit at the very peak of the pyramid of the globalist’s World Shadow Government (WSG).  These global controllers, by and large, directly oversee all the major corporations and most powerful governments across the planet.  Their wish is everyone else’s command, and they will not brook any opposition to their government/corporate agendas or interference with their extra-national political plans … anywhere or anytime.
It is through the absolutist, top-down, fear-driven dynamic of exercising fascist power by which every large corporate entities can be easily controlled from the very pinnacle of the World Shadow Government.  Each and every corporate entity can be easily controlled when faced with the threat of either federal or state prosecution.  Likewise, they can be corralled into a pen of the government’s making through selective predatory taxation and oppressive legislation unfavorable to their industry or business.

Click on diagram to ENLARGE.

Control the President, CEO, and/or Board of Directors of any corporation (or large organization) and you control all of the subordinates below.
This very same principle is what empowered the Roman legions to conquer and maintain control over so many lands.  Ditto that for the Hellenic (Greek) Empire of Alexander the Great, as well as the various Pharaonic Dynasties of Egypt.  This control matrix is based on a number of simple equations and formulae which have been utilized since time immemorial to rule the masses.  Hierarchies of power and control have forever been built into organizations that are structured to exert absolute authority within any given society or nation.
The primary equation, which operates 24/7 within virtually every the control matrix on Planet Earth today, looks like this.  Confer absolute authority upon the top positions of any corporation or government agency, and offer a compensation package which makes it extremely difficult for those in charge to leave the reservation.  When CEO comp schemes are looked at closely, it becomes clear that each element is designed to ensure unquestioning compliance … with the dictates of those who really run Corporate America.
Golden parachutes and golden handcuffs, as they are known, include exceptionally attractive financial incentives to play the corporate game all the way to retirement.  Stock options, deferred compensation, various bonus and incentive plans, company perks such as free housing, transportation, vacations, dining, etc. can add up to substantial sums of money.  Each of these components of executive compensation contributes to the current culture of universal CEO compliance.  When the actual CEO compensations schemes are calculated accurately, it will be understood that they even exceed the obscene pay packages that have been trumpeted by the OCCUPY movement!
CEO-To-Worker Pay Ratio Ballooned 1,000 Percent Since 1950: Report
Once this simple compensation dynamic is firmly put into place, all the direct reports to the President or CEO, Agency Director or Cabinet Secretary, must follow obey the leader.  Not to do so jeopardizes one’s job, one’s career, one’s entire future.  It particularly endangers one’s income stream which one is accustomed to.  Once pampered or spoiled by life’s luxuries, it is ever so difficult to relinquish them for a life of mediocrity or worse.
If these carrots don’t work with a rogue corporate leader, there is always the threat of criminal prosecution for real or fabricated charges which can be trumped up for effect anytime the State Attorney wants to do so.  You’ve heard the phrase that any Grand Jury in America can, and will, “indict a ham sandwich” if the DA wants it to.  Well, it’s entirely true, and it happen every day of the week.  Politically motivated prosecutions have, in fact, become so commonplace that they serve to keep everyone (we mean Everyone on the  planet) watching in check.

Corporatization of the marketplace has exposed everyone to the same threats and risks. Globalization has likewise created new fears and anxieties.  
Herein lies the most potent force in the enforcement of and discipline found within pyramidal power structures across the planet.  Fear of not being able to meet the most basic needs of life hounds almost everyone at some point of their lives.  This primordial fear is so profound and hardwired into human existence that it is easily used as a tool of control and manipulation.  Hence, we see both the Hegelian Dialectic and Divide and Conquer strategies of the elites employing this basic principle with awesome effect, wherever and however they choose to implement them.
As a means of control of all publicly held corporations, these enforcement measures can be taken whenever necessary by those who truly control the Corporatocracy.  As previously stated, all the real controllers have to do is exert maximum control over the President or CEO or Board Chairman.  Once this is accomplished, the real controllers can keep the thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of other corporate employees in check.  The MO is quite simple:  No compliance; no paycheck.  Isn’t that how everyone across corporate America is kept in check everywhere … 24/7?   Now that’s human resource leverage!
In this way those globalists (read Gorillas) “who truly control the realm” don’t really have to throw their weight around or beat their chests very much.  All the disciplinary actions and intermittent firings, demotions and reassignments, downsizings and consolidations, mergers and acquisitions, divestments and realignments, etc.  are left up to just a few corporate officers to approve and duly execute.  If an employee’s ‘infraction’ or insubordination or whistle-blowing is a serious one, the individual may never receive a good reference in the same business or industry again.  Being blackballed like this is also used with equal effect throughout all the professional associations such as the ABA, AMA, ADA, APA and AAA.  Those are the certifying bodies with the relevant control mechanisms in place for law, medical, dental, psychiatric, and accounting respectively.
On the macro level, globalization has subjected every nation and state, province and city, business and industry, corporation and company to extraordinary pressures and risks.  With the passage of new legislation or cancellation of old trade agreements, any given marketplace can be rearranged in a New York minute, as they so often are.  The “800 pound corporate gorilla” is usually the immediate beneficiary of these swift or slow changes in law that lobbyists have often written from beginning to end.  As an example, an organic farmer in South Georgia can be put out of business in a day and a night if the farmer next door is planting Monsanto GMO seeds of the same crop.
There are so many other threats that rampant corporatization of the marketplace has created that it is beyond the scope of this essay to further explore.  As a blatant example, however, of how much can go awry, one need look no further than the continuing Walmart saga of small town destruction to understand the far-reaching ramifications to Main Street, America.  Here is how one commentator put it when examining some of the few repercussions of corporate destruction on a vulnerable nation such as India.

“Let’s pick a country.  Let’s go to India and visit Bhopal of Union Carbide fame.  Close to 8000 people died within two weeks of that December day in 1984 in what is known as the worst industrial disaster of the last century.  Now that Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide, you can only imagine the veritable phalanx of attorneys who are paid unconscionable fees to ensure proper responsibility and accountability will never be assumed by their master.
Or let’s visit the Punjab and talk to the thousands of widows of farmers who committed suicide because of Monsanto’s “seedless seeds”.   Or go to just about anywhere on that subcontinent where a Walmart is being protested for land theft, encroachment and despoilation.   Let’s not forget about all the Coca Cola bottling plants that have become notorious for stealing the most precious commodity that every Indian cherishes and covets – WATER.  Well, that takes care of land, water, air … and blood.  What else in heaven’s name do these stakeholders want?!”[1]

World War I, The Great Depression and World War II Consolidated the Power of the Fascist Corporatocracy
The entire 20th century was primarily about one thing.  Each one of these three extremely cataclysmic events served to put into place the various political, economic and social constructs that would come to define the New World Order (NWO).  While many are still waiting for the NWO to appear in living color on the world stage, they fail to realize that its cornerstone was actually put into place in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act.  With that single stroke of the pen were the American people turned into debt slaves, unknowingly beholden to the emerging fascist corporatocracy at every turn.  Haven’t sticks (read fasces) always been used to keep slaves in line?!
Many readers may be aware of the Albert Pike letter which predicted not only the first two world wars, but also a third.  Most of the same folks are waiting for a World War III, not realizing that it is happening all over the world, 24/7.  What else would one call the state of the Middle East to include Iraq, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, if not a regional war zone.  Then there is Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, and Thailand.  How else would one label the state of affairs in the Ukraine, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil?  We already saw what happened to Yugoslavia and Albania.
The only difference this time around is that the globalists will refrain from calling it World War 3.  It’s a lot easier to conduct a world war without anyone knowing that it just may be coming to a neighborhood near them.  This incremental approach has permitted them to put the right pieces on the chessboard exactly where they need to be before they execute their planned checkmates … just like they did in the Ukraine last week.  In this way the new New World Order is advanced via a “new and improved” internet-based control matrix, with such stealth and deception, many of the populations are merrily going with the flow.  This is what happens when London financiers conspire with Wall Street Brokers; Madison Avenue admen collude with Washington DC politicos; and Hollywood movie producers collaborate with the Military-Industrial Complex.

All CORPORATIONs Must Be Re-Chartered With Mandated Social Responsibility And The Contratual Promise Of Environmental Protection
Clearly, the business entity known as the Corporation must be overhauled if there is to be  an emancipation from our modern form of debt slavery and smothering political (aka corporate-imposed) correctness.  All publicly held corporations possess the same fatal flaws that can be exploited at any time by those who have the power and knowhow.  With the rapid evolution of derivative-based hedge funds and computer-driven investment brokerage,  corporate raiders, venture capitalists, private equity fund managers, and market speculators of every sort and kind can take quick and substantial advantage of any corporation under the sun.
Very Instructive MBA Lesson, Since They Run The Corporations
There are three answers that one can give in virtually any MBA program in America these days and get a gold star from the professor.  Mind you, it makes no difference what the course is, or the question asked in class.  These following answers will always be right!  As follows:
I. Maximize shareholders’ wealth
II. Increase stockholders’ profits
III. Optimize stakeholders’ position
Of course, each of these sacrosanct corporate goals can be accomplished in various ways; one of the quickest is by regular and robust dividend pay out.  Capital appreciation is another which occurs with each increase in the stock price.  These are just two pillars of corporate success which hold up the temple of our post-modern form of predatory capitalism. As long as this temple stands, corrupt, crony, corporate capitalism will continue to lay waste the land … the water … and the seas … all seven of them.
Just why is that?  Because virtually every corporate charter ever written indicates that the corporation answers to the stockholders; they’re the owners.  The needs and demands of the stockholders trump every thing else in the management of the corporate enterprise.  Their enrichment takes precedence over the environment, over the welfare of the employees, over the safety or quality of the product and/or service, over basic social responsibility within the local community.
If the corporate legal team can wiggle its way out of a legitimate lawsuit brought against the company, it will rarely if ever admit to guilt, and will often blame the plaintiff.  Because the costs of litigation can be significantly less than the punitive damages associated with a serious and meritorious legal claim, the legal department will almost always opt for the least costly alternative, even when they know they are flat out guilty of illegal and harmful conduct.  In other words, although a corporation now enjoys various privileges of personhood, it has yet to acquire a conscience.

Conclusion:
In view of the current Second Great Depression in which the world now finds itself, it can be said that the planet stands at the brink of a new dawn.  That new dawn is unlike any the world has experienced before, as it is unique and unprecedented within the current epoch of time.
Because the current race of humanity exists as perhaps the largest and most diverse global population in recorded history, there continues to be much which serves to divide and separate us … as individuals and as families, as neighborhoods and villages, cities and states, nations and continents.  Truly, the community of nations is as plagued as ever by wars, revolutions and conflicts.
As the world population exceeds the 7 billion mark by more people each and every day, the differences of the past must be reconciled.  Religious, racial, cultural, language, custom, gender, and sexual differences will always be there, no matter where one resides on the planet.  Because of the growing scarcity of natural resources, however, conflicts in the socio-economic realm are inevitable. Therefore, economic and financial gaps between us will only widen.  Conflict and wars, quarrel and competition are inevitable where it concerns access to clean water, adequate food and shelter, and sufficient clothing.
This omnipresent fact of life can only be addressed in a meaningful way by eliminating the divisive perception of the many differences which are in reality meaningless.  As long as these differences persist in alienating us from each other, the “800 pound gorilla” will always get its way.  Divide and conquer and/or divide and rule will always be easy for the globalists to execute.  If, however, the overwhelming influence of the gorilla of corporate fascism is dealt with in a bold, decisive and purposeful way, things can change for the better.

It’s always the people’s choice.  Will they choose to live in fear.  Or, will they choose to live with faith and courage.  At the end of the day, as well at the end of this epoch, it will always be the collective will of the people that decides the future of humanity.  Whereas the very fate of the planet now hangs in the balance, perhaps there will be a critical mass of souls compelled to demand real change — change that is positive, durable and effectuated in the best interest of all.
Michael Thomas
February 25, 2014
StateoftheNation2012.com

Isn’t it time to take back OUR couch?!

Author’s Caveat:
There is NO greater threat to human existence than the impunity with which the Government-Corprate Complex currently operates across the planet.  It’s primary instrument of operation is the CORPORATION.  Now that personhood has been conferred upon them, rogue corporations can be used to run roughshod over the Earth like never before.  The status quo in this particular regard was already completely unacceptable; now we will see Gorilla, Inc. on steroids.
Because of the inherent structural defects and profound systemic flaws within the corporate entity, the CORPORATION issue must be addressed at the highest level of global governance.  Such a global transformation of the corporate model will only take place when the people of the world demand it. Otherwise, our civilization will only continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Here’s what one writer has observed and predicted.

“Another announcement will be made, in the not too distant future, about the business entity commonly known as the CORPORATION – the main huckster of this ‘brand’ of faux democracy.  Surely, if the devil were to ever choose the perfect form in which to enter in order to carry out his nefarious designs, Inc. is it.  Is there any other entity on earth – person or party, organization or association, government or institution, jurisdiction or bureaucracy, club or group, fraternity or sorority, etc. that can function with such impunity, as it hides behind the shield of LIMITED LIABILITY.  Those two words have given complete cover for the flagrant and wanton destruction of planet Earth.
You name it – oil slicked coastlines, radiation saturated fishing grounds, razed rainforests, beaches strewn with dead dolphins and whales, GMO-laced food supply, fluoride-laced water supply, chemtrail chemicals forever falling from the sky.  Not to mention the complete and utter erosion of human, civil and national rights, wherever INC decides to set up shop.”[1]

Endnotes:
[1] GLOBAL MONEY MATRIX SELF DESTRUCTS
References:
Special Message to the Market Oracles and Money Masters of the Universe
All Four Wheels Come Off The Anglo-American Juggernaut
The FOUR HORSEMEN Herald the Death Knell of Predatory Capitalism
© 2014 State of the Nation
Permission is granted to post this essay as long as it is linked back to the following url:http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=3619

Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/real-800-pound-gorilla-controls-realm/#ixzz2uTqZ7IAh

Western spy agencies build ‘cyber magicians’ to manipulate online discourse

RT

Secret units within the ‘Five Eyes” global spying network engage in covert online operations that aim to invade, deceive, and control online communities and individuals through the spread of false information and use of ingenious social-science tactics.

Such teams of highly trained professionals have several main objectives, such as “to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet” and “to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable,” The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald reported based on intelligence documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The new information comes via a document from the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), entitled ‘The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations,’ which is top secret and only for dissemination within the Five Eyes intelligence partnership that includes Britain, the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Image from firstlook.org

The document outlines what tactics are used to achieve JTRIG’s main objectives. Among those tactics that seek to “discredit a target” include “false flag operations” (posting material online that is falsely attributed to a target), fake victim blog posts (writing as a victim of a target to disseminate false information), and posting “negative information” wherever pertinent online.

Other discrediting tactics used against individuals include setting a “honey-trap“ (using sex to lure targets into compromising situations), changing a target’s photo on a social media site, and emailing or texting “colleagues, neighbours, friends etc.”

To “discredit a company,” GCHQ may “leak confidential information to companies/the press via blog…post negative information on appropriate forums [or] stop deals/ruin business relationships.”

JTRIG’s ultimate purpose, as defined by GCHQ in the document, is to use “online techniques to make something happen in the real world or cyber world.” These online covert actions follow the “4 D’s:” deny, disrupt, degrade, deceive.

Image from firstlook.org

As Greenwald pointed out, the tactics employed by JTRIG are not used for spying on other nations, militaries, or intelligence services, but for “traditional law enforcement” against those merely suspected of crimes. These targets can include members of Anonymous, “hacktivists,” or really any person or entity GCHQ deems worthy of antagonizing.

“[I]t is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption,” Greenwald wrote.

In addition, the targets do not need to have ties to terror activity or pose any national security threat. More likely, targets seem to fall closer to political activists that may have, for instance, used “denial of service” tactics, popular with Anonymous and hacktivists, which usually do only a limited amount of damage to a target.

Image from firstlook.org

“These surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats,” Greenwald wrote.

In addition to the personal attacks on targets, JTRIG also involves the use of psychological and social-science tactics to steer online activism and discourse. The document details GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” which focuses on “online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption” that are used to dissect how targets can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience,” and “compliance.”

Using tested manipulation tactics, JTRIG attempts to influence discourse and ultimately sow discord through deception.

When reached for comment by The Intercept, GCHQ avoided answering pointed questions on JTRIG while insisting its methods were legal.

“It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position,” GCHQ stated.

Human-animal hybrids, disasters in the making

paging herr dr. frankenstein  ?  paging the good herr dr. ??    paging dr. victor frankenstein    ....    (hear in back ground )   mumbles ?    mumbling   than grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr  grumpf   ....crunch  crack   snapple punch   !@#$%^&*(      SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT it    fucking SHOOT ! )(*&*(+_)@#$^%$#   KILL IT    ....pop snap $%^&&$@#$%^&*      kill the fucking thing !!!   ...   fire .....quick get FIREEEEEEEEEEEEE      lol   fucking kooks ..."they"    Never  fucking EVER  ...factor  in .........   evil     huh until "their "    fucking "critter" is snap~in    at "their" ...asssssses :o

VOA

Scientists worldwide are creating bizarre human-animal hybrids that could wreak havoc on society. In the past ten years alone, unforgettable advances in the field of genetic modifications have left researchers and on-lookers stunned.

Nowadays, it is possible for a couple of university-age students to concoct new life forms in the comfort of their own basement. Regrettably so, laws have not been able to keep up with the pace at which scientists have been toying around with their creations.

In turn, the entities being created are not at all illegal but by all means could pose a risk to society by and large. There is no telling what may happen if these life forms are allowed to mate. Still, eagerness can be seen in the eyes and minds of scientists on a global level just waiting to unleash their next creation to the world, that all seemed liked fantasy just a short time ago.

To give a concrete example, scientists have made mice with an artificial human chromosome “in every cell of their bodies”. Such an act is being praised as a “breakthrough” which may lead to different cures for a wide scope of disease. As reported by Lifenews.com, University of Wisconsin researchers have had much success by transferring cells from human embryos into the brains of mice. These very cells began to grow, and in time made the mice more intelligent.

The mice showed that they were able to solve a simple maze and learn conditioning signals at a more enhanced level than if compared to before their transformation. Critics are quick to question whether a practice of injecting parts of humans in animals carries more benefits than risks.

Even now it is apparent that growing human organs inside of animals is not science fiction, but pure reality. Japanese scientists have started using pigs to grow human organs inside of them. The entire growth process takes up to 12 months to complete.

Their main goal is to add onto the amount of organs available for medical procedures according to an Infowars.com write up about the topic. However, this is no basement operation as the Japanese government is figuring out guidelines for the embryonic research initiative.

Thetruthwins.com is quick to point out that once a human organ has begun to grow inside of a pig, that pig is no longer 100 percent pig. If that can be said to be true, then the human organ that grows inside of the pig cannot be perceived as 100 percent human after it developed inside of another animal. Recipients of such organs will be letting human-animal hybrid parts be put inside their bodies.

The consequences of creating such hybrids could pose a hazard to communities near and far. However, the perhaps more unsettling part is realizing that it is not known what is to be predicted should the hybrids become uncontrollable.

What is even more daunting is that most countries do not have laws against creations of this kind, leading people to produce these entities freely. Additionally, no punishment is set in place should the living thing become a walking disaster.

It is believed that genetically tweaking animals to grow human parts is just another way of corrupting nature. Back in 2011, the Daily Mail reported on UK scientists creating “more than 150” human-animal hybrid embryos and very few readers got upset over this.

Other examples have been noted of in a Slate article, such as packs of humanized-milk producing goats, an anal sphincter being placed into a mouse, and doctors constructing a human immune system made for animals. Still, these are just the projects that are known about. There may be other experiments underway that are off the radar. Human-animals hybrids are possible, but it leaves people debating on whether the benefits truly outweigh the risks involved.

Americans rising up against government: Column

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Three examples of pushback against the ruling class.

America’s ruling class has been experiencing more pushback than usual lately. It just might be a harbinger of things to come.
First, in response to widespread protests last week, the Department of Homeland Security canceled plans to build a nationwide license plate database. Many local police departments already use license-plate readers that track every car as it passes traffic signals or pole-mounted cameras. Specially equipped police cars even track cars parked on the street or even in driveways.

The DHS put out a bid request for a system that would have gone national, letting the federal government track millions of people’s comings and goings just as it tracks data about every phone call we make. But the proposal was suddenly withdrawn last week, with the unconvincing explanation that it was all a mistake. I’m inclined to agree with TechDirt’s Tim Cushing, who wrote: “The most plausible explanation is that someone up top at the DHS or ICE suddenly realized that publicly calling for bids on a nationwide surveillance system while nationwide surveillance systems are being hotly debated was … a horrible idea.”
On Friday, after more public outrage, the Federal Communications Commission withdrew a plan to “monitor” news coverage at not only broadcast stations, but also at print publications that the FCC has no authority to regulate. The “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN (pronounced “sin”) involved the FCC sending people to question reporters and editors about why they chose to run particular stories. Many folks in and out of the media found it Orwellian.
How this program appeared was, like the DHS program, a bit of a mystery: FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said: “This has never been put to an FCC vote; it was just announced.” But the blowback was sufficient to stop it for now.
Meanwhile, in Connecticut a massive new gun-registration scheme is also facing civil disobedience. As J.D. Tuccille reports: “Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as ‘assault weapons,’ and 2 million plus high-capacity magazines. … But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for ‘assault weapon’ registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines.”
This is more “Irish Democracy,” passive resistance to government overreach. The Hartford (Conn.) Courant is demanding that the state use background-check records to prosecute those who haven’t registered, but the state doesn’t have the resources and it’s doubtful juries would convict ordinary, law-abiding people for failure to file some paperwork.
Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela to Thailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they’ve begun.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.